微流體實驗室晶片上之自動化樣本準備及驗證

Abstract

微流體生物晶片(microfluidic biochip)在近代生物科技上被視為重要的革命性發展 之一，其具有可重組態(reconfigurability)和可擴充性(scalability)的特性，可大大減少樣本 成本及整合超大型複雜之生化實驗。由於近年來微流體生物晶片技術迅速發展，使得應 用在醫學、環境及軍事的需求逐漸增加，將造成設計複雜度爆炸性的增長。特別是醫療 檢測實驗的需求次數越來越高，在實驗流程中，需大量準備不同濃度之樣本(Sample)提 供各式各樣的測試，傳統使用人工樣本準備經常造成錯誤及時間之浪費，因此，我們提 出使用微流體生物晶片來做樣本準備(Sample Preparation)之自動化，可正確產生樣本及 大大節省實驗時間。本計畫與印度統計學院(India Statistical Institute)國際共同合作開發 樣本準備之自動化及驗證自動化工具，特別是具有許多不通梯度(Gradient)之樣本準備。

Microfluidic biochips are recently being advocated for on-chip implementation of several biochemical laboratory assays or protocols. Such labs-on-a-chip (LoC) has brought a complete paradigm shift in DNA analysis, toxicity grading, in molecular biology, and in drug design and delivery. This technology offers a viable and low-cost platform for reducing healthcare cost of cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, for providing point-of-care (P-o-C) health services. Due to recent advance in bio-MEMS and various applications to clinical, environmental, and military operations, the design complexity and scale of microfluidic biochips are expected to explode in near future, thus requiring strong support from CAD as in conventional VLSI. Among them, an essential step needed in almost all biochemical assays is sample preparation, which includes among others, operations, such as diluting a reactant, and mixing a number of samples/reagents in a certain ratio. Also, in many biological assays, e.g., in bacterial susceptibility tests, samples and reagents are required in multiple concentration (or dilution) factors, satisfying certain “gradient” patterns such as linear, exponential, or parabolic. Dilution gradients are usually prepared with continuous-flow microfluidic (CMF) devices; however, they suffer from inflexibility, non-programmability, and they need a large amount of costly stock solutions. In this project, we propose automatic sample preparation and validation of biochemical assays on a microfluidic lab-on-a-chip (LoC) through our international cooperation with India Statistical Institute.