Electronic detection of DNA: robust platform for integrated devices

Sample-to-answer devices that both amplify and detect nucleic acid targets will find use in health-care, agricultural, forensic medicine, military applications, environmental monitoring and animal husbandry. Ideally, these devices will be able to start with almost any sample input, be inexpensive to manufacture, utilize portable instrumentation, and require no user intervention. In practice, developing devices that meet these criteria are difficult due to limitations imposed by the enzymatic amplification procedures, and the DNA detection platform. Motorola's Clinical Micro Sensors division has recently developed and commercialized an electronic nucleic acid detection platform that simplifies the process for building sample-to-answer devices.