Microdevices for Biological Analyses Recent Advances and Directions for the Future

Abstract

SAMPLE ACQUISITION AND CONTROL Biological sampling is important for drug discovery applications and for the basic biochemical and neurochemical discovery process. Several issues arise when sampling from biological environments. First, important biology can occur in small volumes (nL-pL) and at low concentrations (mM-nM). In order to access this information, the important biochemicals must be detectable and the time of specific biochemical events must be recorded. This means that a sampling and analysis method should be selective for the analyte(s) of interest, without loss or dilution, for efficient analysis. Tremendous accomplishments in biological sampling and analysis have been made, both for sampling and microfluidic manipulation. This article focuses on advances in controlling small volumes of biological samples and the analysis of specific analytes in those samples.