Modeling and Prototyping of a Microfluidic Device for DNA Amplification

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a procedure employed by clinical and research laboratories to amplify segments of DNA. The technique uses the thermal cycling of genetic material to produce a substantial amount of DNA from a small initial sample. The amplification of specific segments of DNA helps identify viruses and gene mutations, and also plays a role in diagnosis methods. The whole procedure may take several hours to be completed using conventional benchtop thermal cyclers. In order to reduce process time and equipment cost, we propose the development of a microfluidic device as an alternative to the thermal cyclers currently available in the market. The paper describes the steps and processes required for creating PCR microfluidic thermal cyclers. The main results of the development are the thermal modeling and the prototype fabrication of the new device.