Microsystems for independent parallel chemical and biological processing

Abstract

Modern microsystem application is concentrated on the development of microstructured sensors and actuators in integrated devices. Examples of that approach are microoptical components for endoscopic surgery, sensors and micropumps in integrated liquid analysers for pollution measurements. Often microsystems replace normal systems like commercially available piston pumps by silicon made liquid pumps in the hope of reducing costs but there is a lack of finding new applications. In contrast our approach of combining special developed microcompartments constructed with transparent membranes or microsieves and microdosing systems based on the ink jet principle together with optical devices like CCD cameras allow to overcome a real bottleneck in the new field of evolutionary biotechnology, the problem of screening a huge number of samples at a reasonable price. The goal of this approach is to design new molecules like enzymes by means of Darwinian evolution i.e. mutation and selection. In applying the selection principle to self amplifying entities like cell populations, viruses or self-replicating molecules under controlled selection pressures there is an absolute need to process large numbers of these entities in parallel. Preferentially this can be done in arrays of different microstructured compartments. The selection process is designed that it leads to products which are optimized in regard of specific applications. Within the scope of this approach chemical products are deterministically synthesized in spatially adressable compartments by multihead microdrop systems.