High lane density slab gel electrophoresis by micromachined instrumentation

One of the challenges of future miniaturized biochemical analysis laboratories is to manipulate sub-/spl mu/L samples in parallel fashion. Since the development and implementation of the 96-well microtiter plate technology, considerable progress has been made to increase the plate density. A number of high-density formats have been developed based on the well-established 96-well format, including 386, 864, and 1536 wells. The available sample handling systems, however, are lagging due to wide center-to-center spacing and inability to handle sample volumes below 0.5 /spl mu/L. Also, these systems are capable of dispensing only 6 to 12 pipettes at one time. With the current trends of miniaturizing biochemical analysis techniques and the drive toward the development of a Micro Total Analysis System (/spl mu/TAS), techniques must be developed to allow macroscale spatial manipulation of sub-/spl mu/L sample volumes in a highly parallel manner at sub-mm spacing In this work, we present an approach for macroscopic manipulation of pL to /spl mu/L fluid volumes and demonstrate the application to slab gel electrophoresis.