Chemistry: electrical and wave energy – Apparatus – Electrophoretic or electro-osmotic apparatus
Patent
1997-02-03
1999-01-12
Warden, Robert J.
Chemistry: electrical and wave energy
Apparatus
Electrophoretic or electro-osmotic apparatus
204450, 204451, 204600, G01N 2726, G01N 27447
Patent
active
058581952
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to miniature instrumentation for chemical analysis, chemical sensing and synthesis and, more specifically, to electrically controlled manipulations of fluids in micromachined channels. These manipulations can be used in a variety of applications, including the electrically controlled manipulation of fluid for capillary electrophoresis, liquid chromatography, flow injection analysis, and chemical reaction and synthesis.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Laboratory analysis is a cumbersome process. Acquisition of chemical and biochemical information requires expensive equipment, specialized labs and highly trained personnel. For this reason, laboratory testing is done in only a fraction of circumstances where acquisition of chemical information would be useful. A large proportion of testing in both research and clinical situations is done with crude manual methods that are characterized by high labor costs, high reagent consumption, long turnaround times, relative imprecision and poor reproducibility. The practice of techniques such as electrophoresis that are in widespread use in biology and medical laboratories have not changed significantly in thirty years.
Operations that are performed in typical laboratory processes include specimen preparation, chemical/biochemical conversions, sample fractionation, signal detection and data processing. To accomplish these tasks, liquids are often measured and dispensed with volumetric accuracy, mixed together, and subjected to one or several different physical or chemical environments that accomplish conversion or fractionation. In research, diagnostic, or development situations, these operations are carried out on a macroscopic scale using fluid volumes in the range of a few microliters to several liters at a time. Individual operations are performed in series, often using different specialized equipment and instruments for separate steps in the process. Complications, difficulty and expense are often the result of operations involving multiple laboratory processing steps.
Many workers have attempted to solve these problems by creating integrated laboratory systems. Conventional robotic devices have been adapted to perform pipetting, specimen handling, solution mixing, as well as some fractionation and detection operations. However, these devices are highly complicated, very expensive and their operation requires so much training that their use has been restricted to a relatively small number of research and development programs. More successful have been automated clinical diagnostic systems for rapidly and inexpensively performing a small number of applications such as clinical chemistry tests for blood levels of glucose, electrolytes and gases. Unfortunately due to their complexity, large size and great cost, such equipment, is limited in its application to a small number of diagnostic circumstances.
The desirability of exploiting the advantages of integrated systems in a broader context of laboratory applications has led to proposals that such systems be miniaturized. In the 1980's, considerable research and development effort was put into an exploration of the concept of biosensors with the hope they might fill the need. Such devices make use of selective chemical systems or biomolecules that are coupled to new methods of detection such as electrochemistry and optics to transduce chemical signals to electrical ones that can be interpreted by computers and other signal processing units. Unfortunately, biosensors have been a commercial disappointment. Fewer than 20 commercialized products were available in 1993, accounting for revenues in the U.S. of less than $ 100 million. Most observers agree that this failure is primarily technological rather than reflecting a misinterpretation of market potential. In fact, many situations such as massive screening for new drugs, highly parallel genetic research and testing, micro-chemistry to minimize costly reagent consumption and waste generation, and bedside or d
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Lockheed Martin Energy Research Corporation
Starsiak Jr. John S.
Warden Robert J.
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