Caltech researchers devisenew microdevice for fluid analysis

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology announced today a new paradigm for large-scale integration of microfluidic devices. Using new techniques, they built chips with as many as 6,000 microvalves and up to 1,000 tiny individual chambers.

The technology is being commercialized by Fluidigm in San Francisco, which is using multi-layer soft lithography (MSL) techniques to create microfluidic chips to run the smallest-volume polymerase chain reactions documented—20,000 parallel reactions at volumes of 100 picoliters.

In a paper to appear in the journal Science, Caltech associate professor of applied physics and physics Stephen Quake and his colleagues describe the research on picoliter-scale chambers. Quake's team describes the 1,000 individually addressable chambers, and also demonstrates on a separate device with more than 2,000 microvalves, that two different reagents can be separately loaded to perform distinct assays in two subnanoliter chambers and then recover the contents of a single chamber.

According to Quake, who cofounded Fluidigm, the devices should have many new scientific, commercial, and biomedical applications. "We now have the tools in hand to design complex microfluidic systems and, through switchable isolation, recover contents from a single chamber for further investigation."

"Together, these advancements speak to the power of MSL technology to achieve large-scale integration and the ability to make a commercial impact in microfluidics," said Gajus Worthington, President and CEO of Fluidigm. "PCR is the cornerstone of genomics applications. Fluidigm's microprocessor, coupled with the ability to recover results from the chip, offers the greatest level of miniaturization and integration of any platform," added Worthington.

Fluidigm hopes to leverage these advancements as it pursues genomics and proteomics applications. Fluidigm has already shipped a prototype product for protein crystallization that transforms decades-old methodologies to a chip-based format, vastly reducing sample input requirements and improving cost and labor by orders of magnitude.

Contact: Robert Tindol (626) 395-3631 t