AVS 53rd International Symposium
    Biomaterial Interfaces Tuesday Sessions
       Session BI+MN-TuA

Paper BI+MN-TuA3
Surface Modification of Microfluidic Devices for Biological Applications

Tuesday, November 14, 2006, 2:40 pm, Room 2014

Session: Microfluidics, MEMS, Lab-on-Chip
Presenter: S.L. McArthur, University of Sheffield, UK
Authors: M. Salim, University of Sheffield, UK
G.J.S. Fowler, University of Sheffield, UK
B O'Sullivan, University of Sheffield, UK
P.C. Wright, University of Sheffield, UK
S.L. McArthur, University of Sheffield, UK
Correspondent: Click to Email
Microfluidic systems are becoming increasingly important for bioanalytical and biochemical research such as proteomics, genomics, clinical diagnostics and drug discovery. Miniaturisation has been applied to bioassays and biological applications such as electrophoresis, DNA sequencing, DNA separation, immunoassays, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), cell counting, enzymatic assays, cell sorting and cell culture onto a chip. In all of these applications the ability of control biomolecule interactions with the device surface is critical. In this study we use ELISA, fluorescence microscopy, XPS and ToF-SIMS to investigate a range of surface modification methods for controlling the non-specific adsorption and immobilisation of biomolecules on glass microfluidic devices and micro-capillaries. The results highlight that protein adsorption occurs rapidly on the devices and that while varying concentration, residences time, flow, pH all influenced the adsorption profiles, none of these were able to completely eliminate protein adsorption. Plasma polymerisation has proved to be a flexible system for controlling the interactions along microfluidic channels. The wide range of monomers available for polymerisation has enabled us to develop low-fouling channels, functionalised substrates for the immobilisation of enzymes and antibodies and spatially control the surface chemistry along a channel length.