214 results about "Digital microfluidics" patented technology

The present invention provides an apparatus and method for performing heat-exchanging reactions on an electro wetting-based micro fluidic device. The apparatus provides one or multiple thermal contacts to an electro wetting-based device, where each thermal contact controls the part of the electro wetting-based device it communicates with to a designed temperature. The electrowetting-based device can be used to create, merge and mix liquids in the format of droplets and transport them to different temperature zones on the micro fluidic device. The apparatus and methods of the invention can be used for heat-exchanging chemical processes such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and other DNA reactions, such as ligase chain reactions, for DNA amplification and synthesis, and for real-time PCR.

We introduce a new method for implementing cell-based assays and long-term cell culture. The method is based on digital microfluidics (DMF) which is used to actuate nanoliter droplets of reagents and cells on a planar array of electrodes. DMF method is sutable for assaying and culturing both cells in suspension and cells grown on surface (adherent cells). This method is advantageous for cell culture and assays due to the automated manipulation of multiple reagents in addition to reduced reagent use and analysis time. No adverse effects of actuation by DMF were observed in assays for cell viability, proliferation, and biochemistry. These results suggest that DMF has great potential as a simple yet versatile analytical tool for implementing cell-based assays and cell culture on the microscale.

A method of extracting hormones from a biological sample using digital microfluidic arrays is provided. Biological samples containing hormones are dried on a digital microfluidic array, lysed by a lysing solvent, dried, subsequently dissolved in a polar solvent, and further purified in an extraction step in which droplets are transported through a volume of non-polar solvent. The method disclosed herein provides the distinct advantage of an automated sample preparation method that is capable of extracting hormones from low sample volumes with excellent precision and recovery.

Devices and methods for implementing cell-based assays and long-term cell culture. The device and method are based on digital microfluidics (DMF) which is used to actuate nanoliter droplets of reagents and cells on a planar array of electrodes. DMF method is suitable for assaying and culturing both cells in suspension and cells grown on surface (adherent cells). This method is advantageous for cell culture and assays due to the automated manipulation of multiple reagents in addition to reduced reagent use and analysis time. No adverse effects of actuation by DMF were observed in assays for cell viability, proliferation, and biochemistry. These results suggest that DMF has great potential as a simple yet versatile analytical tool for implementing cell-based assays and cell culture on the microscale.

Apparatus and methods are provided for liquid manipulation utilizing electrostatic field force. The apparatus is a single-sided electrode design in which all conductive elements are embedded on the first surface on which droplets are manipulated. An additional second surface can be provided parallel with the first surface for the purpose of containing the droplets to be manipulated. By performing electrowetting based techniques in which different electrical potential values are applied to different electrodes embedded in the first surface in a controlled manner, the apparatus enables a number of droplet manipulation processes, including sampling a continuous liquid flow by forming individually controllable droplets from the flow, moving a droplet, merging and mixing two or more droplets together, splitting a droplet into two or more droplets, iterative binary mixing of droplets to obtain a desired mixing ratio, and enhancing liquid mixing within a droplet.

The invention is directed to a droplet actuator device and methods for integrating gel electrophoresis analysis with pre or post-analytical sample handling as well as other molecular analysis processes. Using digital microfluidics technology, the droplet actuator device and methods of the invention provide the ability to perform gel electrophoresis and liquid handling operations on a single integrated device. The integrated liquid handling operations may be used to prepare and deliver samples to the electrophoresis gel, capture and subsequently process products of the electrophoresis gel or perform additional assays on the same sample materials which are analyzed by gel electrophoresis. In one embodiment, one or more molecular assays, such as nucleic acid (e.g., DNA) quantification by real-time PCR, and one or more sample processing operations such as sample dilution is performed on a droplet actuator integrated with an electrophoresis gel. In one embodiment, an electrophoresis gel may be integrated on the top substrate of the droplet actuator.

A disposable cartridge had body, bottom layer with first hydrophobic surface, top layer with a second hydrophobic surface, and gap between. The bottom layer is a flexible film sealingly attached at its circumference to the top layer. No spacer is between the layers. The top layer has loading sites for transferring processing liquids into the gap. In use, the bottom layer is a working film for manipulating samples in liquid droplets and is placed on an electrode array of a digital microfluidics system having base unit with cartridge accommodation site and electrode array at the site. The electrode array is supported by a bottom substrate that extends in a first plane and has individual electrodes. The system also includes a central control unit for controlling selection of the electrodes and for providing these electrodes with individual voltage pulses for manipulating liquid droplets within the gap by electrowetting.

A method for extracting proteins from heterogeneous fluids by precipitation using microfluidics. The method uses an automated protocol for precipitation of proteins onto surfaces, rinsing the precipitates to remove impurities, and resolubilization in buffer for further analysis. The method is compatible with proteins representing a range of different physicochemical properties, as well as with complex mixtures such as fetal bovine serum and cell lysate. In all cases, the quantitative performance (measured using a fluorescent assay for % recovery) was comparable to that of conventional techniques, which are manual and require more time.

The invention belongs to the technical field of micro-fluidic analysis chips, and concretely relates to a nano-material electrode modification based electrochemical integrated digital micro-fluidic chip. The electrochemical integrated digital micro-fluidic chip treats a digital micro-fluidic chip as a base and integrates an electrochemical-sensing micro-electrode, an electrochemical electrode is embedded in the control electrode of the digital micro-fluidic chip, and all the electrodes are positioned in a same plane of the chip. The nano-material modification of the electrochemical sensing electrode is realized through the micro-fluidic automatic control in order to enhance the electrochemical sensing capability of the micro-fluidic chip. The nano-material electrode modification based electrochemical integrated digital micro-fluidic chip has the advantages of novel design, high integration level, convenient making, high automation degree, strong detection capability, realization of the micro-scale, rapid and sensitive detection, and substantial widening of the application ranges of the electrochemical sensing and digital micro-fluidic fields.

The invention discloses a digital microfluidic droplet driving device and method. The digital microfluidic droplet driving device comprises a first substrate, a second substrate and a control circuitlayer. A droplet accommodating space is formed between the first substrate and the second substrate. A reference electrode is arranged in one side of the first substrate. A first hydrophobic layer isarranged in one side of the reference electrode layer. A driving electrode layer is arranged in one side of the second substrate. The driving electrode layer comprises multiple driving electrode blocks spaced apart from each other. A dielectric layer is disposed on one side of the driving electrode layer. A second hydrophobic layer is arranged in one side of the dielectric layer. The control circuit layer comprises a scanning line and a first driving signal line. The scanning line and the first driving signal line intersect to define a plurality of control units. The control units are arrangedcorresponding to the driving electrode blocks. The digital microfluidic droplet driving device can greatly improve the number of independent electrodes in the microfluidic chip and a controllable droplet size and realize free movement, separation and merging of high-density droplets.

The invention belongs to the digital microfluidic technical field, in particular relates to a digital microfluidic device and control method based on the electrowetting effect of dielectric; the device structure of the invention comprises a substrate, an insulating layer, a metal electrode layer, a dielectric layer and a drainage layer in sequence from bottom to top, wherein, the dielectric layer adopts high dielectric constant material, such as an organic film of PVDF, etc.; the electrode adopts a single-layer control electrode; a liquid drop driving method based on the device is that the liquid drop is added on the surface of the drainage layer of the upper of two adjacent electrodes at the same layer, voltage is applied between the two electrodes, the controlled movement of the liquid drop can be realized by moving the two electrodes; the digital microfluidic device and control method of the invention reduce the complexity of the technique largely, reduce the cost and increase the flexibility of the microfluidic operation.

The present invention provides exchangeable, reagent pre-loaded carriers (10), preferably in the form of plastic sheets, which can be temporarily applied to an electrode array (16) on a digital microfluidic (DMF) device (14). The carrier (10) facilitates virtually un-limited re-use of the DMF devices (14) avoiding cross-contamination on the electrode array (16) itself, as well as enabling rapid exchange of pre-loaded reagents (12) while bridging the world-to-chip interface of DMF devices (14). The present invention allows for the transformation of DMF into a versatile platform for lab-on-a-chip applications.

Digital microfluidics system manipulates samples in liquid droplets within disposable cartridges that have bottom layer, top layer, and gap between the bottom and top layers. The system has a base unit with cartridge accommodation sites and a central control unit for controlling selection of individual electrodes of electrode arrays and for providing these electrodes with individual voltage pulses for manipulating liquid droplets within the cartridges by electrowetting. The system further has board accommodation sites located at the cartridge accommodation sites that each can take up a swappable electrode board having an electrode array and electrical board contact elements individually connected to electrodes of the electrode array. Each board accommodation site has electrical base unit contact elements that are connected to the central control unit and that are configured to engage with the electrical board contact elements of a swappable electrode board that is placed at the board accommodation site.

The invention discloses a method of transporting liquid drops by a micro-fluidic chip. The method comprises following steps: step one, a micro-fluidic chip is provided, the micro-fluidic chip comprises array-arranged driving electrodes, the driving electrodes are in half-moon shapes, in the fluid drop transportation direction, one edge of each electrode is in a convex arc shape, the other edge of each electrode is in a concave arc shape, and the convex arc is opposite to the concave arc between two neighbored electrodes; step two, an electric potential between 32 V and 60 V is exerted between the neighbored driving electrodes to drive the liquid drops on the driving electrodes to move. The method of transporting liquid drops by a micro-fluidic chip aims to reduce the driving voltage of a digital micro-fluidic chip, so the electric field strength of the chip is reduced, damages to the biological activity organisms contained in the liquid drops are avoided, and the use efficiency of the digital micro-fluidic chip is improved at the same time.

Integrated devices that include a sample preparation component integrated with a detection component are disclosed. The sample preparation component may be a digital microfluidics module or a surface acoustic wave module which modules are used for combing a sample droplet with a reagent droplet and for performing additional sample preparation step leading to a droplet that contains beads / particles / labels that indicate presence or absence of an analyte of interest in the sample. The beads / particles / labels may be detected by moving the droplet to the detection component of the device, which detection component includes an array of wells. Additonal analyte detection devices configured to operate an analyte detection chip to prepare a test sample and to detect an analyte related signal from the prepared test sample in the analyte detection chip are disclosed. The analyte detection chip may include a digital microfluidics (DMF) region and an analyte detection region which may overlap or may be spatially separated. The analyte detection device may be configured for detection of analyte by an optical or electrochemical means operably connected with an analyte detection chip inserted into the device.

The invention belongs to the technical field of micro analysis, in particular to an electrochemical sensor chip based on the digital microfluidic technology. The sensor chip comprises a digital microfluidic device and a three-electrode electrochemical device, wherein the three-electrode electrochemical device is stacked on the digital microfluidic device; the digital microfluidic device comprises a bottom layer and an upper cover, wherein the bottom layer comprises a first substrate, a first insulating layer, a first electrode layer, a second insulating layer and a first drainage layer in sequence from bottom to top; the upper cover comprises a second drainage layer, a second electrode layer, a third insulating layer and a second substrate in sequence from bottom to top; when the first substrate and the second substrate are made of insulating materials, the first insulating layer and the third insulating layer are dispensed; three electrodes include a counter electrode, a working electrode and a reference electrode; and the three electrodes and the first drainage layer are positioned on the same plane and surrounded but not covered by the first drainage layer. The electrochemical sensor chip can realize the delivery and the online detection of various required liquid samples.

Apparatus and methods are provided for liquid manipulation utilizing electrostatic field force. The apparatus is a single-sided electrode design in which all conductive elements are embedded on the first surface on which droplets are manipulated. An additional second surface can be provided parallel with the first surface for the purpose of containing the droplets to be manipulated. By performing electrowetting based techniques in which different electrical potential values are applied to different electrodes embedded in the first surface in a controlled manner, the apparatus enables a number of droplet manipulation processes, including sampling a continuous liquid flow by forming individually controllable droplets from the flow, moving a droplet, merging and mixing two or more droplets together, splitting a droplet into two or more droplets, iterative binary mixing of droplets to obtain a desired mixing ratio, and enhancing liquid mixing within a droplet.

The invention discloses a full-automatic single particle / single cell capturing chip based on a digital microfluids technique and application thereof. The full-automatic single particle / single cell capturing chip comprises a digital microfluids chip with multiple pattern layers and an integrated circuit, wherein the digital microfluids chip with multiple pattern layers consists of an upper electrode plate and a lower electrode plate; the upper electrode plate adopts lyophobic conductive glass as a ground electrode; the integrated circuit is used as a digital microfluids circuit control system.The full-automatic single particle / single cell capturing chip has the advantages that the single particles / single cells can be fully automatically captured, the operation is simple and quick, and thecapturing efficiency is high; a sample can be recycled without damage, and the capturing chip is especially suitable for rare samples; the continuous and complicated parallel operation of the capturing unit is realized by program control, and the crossing pollution is avoided; the capturing chip can be widely applied to the fields of detection of single particles and analysis of single cells, suchas isolation, coupling and detection of single particles, and isolation, culture and nucleic acid amplification of single cells.

A disposable cartridge used in a digital microfluidics system has a bottom layer with first hydrophobic surface, a rigid cover plate with second hydrophobic surface, and a gap there-between. The bottom layer is a flexible film on an uppermost surface of a cartridge accommodation site of a system, attracted to and spread over the uppermost surface by an underpressure. A lower surface of the plate and the flexible bottom layer are sealed to each other. The assembled cartridge is removed from the cartridge accommodation site in one piece and potentially includes samples and processing fluids. The system has a base unit and a cartridge accommodation site with an electrode array of individual electrodes and a central control unit for controlling selection of individual electrodes and for providing these electrodes with individual voltage pulses for manipulating liquid droplets within the gap by electrowetting.

The invention belongs to the digital microfluidic technical field and particularly relates to a single-sided two-dimensional driving digital microfluidic chip based on electrowetting. The chip is of the single-sided electrode plate structure, strip driving electrodes and a strip ground electrode are integrated on the same single-sided electrode plate, the ground electrode can be integrated on the driving electrodes or in the electrode gap of the driving electrodes, liquid drops are driven on the monopolar plate, the upper electrode plate is not essential and the real single-sided two-dimensional driving chip is realized. By adopting the single-sided two-dimensional driving digital microfluidic chip based on electrowetting, the drive performance and functional integration of the microfluidic chip can be greatly increased and the application range of the digital microfluidic field can be amplified.

The present invention provides an exchangeable, reagent pre-loaded sheets which can be temporarily applied to an electrode array on a digital microfluidic device (DMF). The substrate facilitates virtually un-limited re-use of the DMF devices avoiding cross-contamination on the electrode array itself, as well as enabling rapid exchange of pre-loaded reagents while bridging the world-to-chip interface of DMF devices. The present invention allows for the transformation of DMF into a versatile platform for lab-on-a-chip applications.

A digital microfluidics system manipulates samples in liquid droplets within disposable cartridges and has disposable cartridges each with a bottom layer, a top layer and a gap therebetween. A base unit with cartridge accommodation sites and at least one electrode array with electrodes works with a cover plate at the sites and a control unit for controlling selection of the electrodes and for providing them with voltage pulses for manipulating liquid droplets within the cartridges by electrowetting. The cover plate has an electrically conductive material that extends parallel to the array. A selection of disposable cartridges and a method for manipulating samples in liquid droplets that adhere to a hydrophobic surface can be used with the system.

The invention belongs to the technical field of biological chips, concretely relates to a novel electrochemical sensor chip with a digital microfluidic technology. The chip is sequentially composed of three parts from bottom to top: a droplet control unit, a droplet passage and an electrochemical unit, wherein the droplet control unit is composed of a first substrate, a first insulation layer, a first electrode layer, a second insulation layer and a first hydrophobic layer from bottom to top; the electrochemical unit is sequentially composed of an electrochemical electrode group, a second hydrophobic layer, a second electrode layer, a third insulation layer and a second substrate from bottom to top; when the first substrate and the second substrate are insulation materials, the first insulation layer and the third insulation layer are left out; the electrochemical electrode group comprises a counter electrode, a working electrode and a reference electrode and covers the lower surface of the second hydrophobic layer; the droplet passage is an air gap in the droplet control unit and the electrochemical unit. In the invention, the advantages of a digital microfluidic technology and an electrochemical sensor technology are combined and a novel micro-analysis device is provided for biochemical analysis; and therefore, the sample demand is decreased, the detection speed is increased, the conveying of various liquid samples needed in detection can be realized and the on-line detection is realized.

The invention discloses a fluorescence liquid drop sorting system based on digital microfluidics and a sorting method thereof. The fluorescence liquid drop sorting system comprises a digital microfluidic chip, an integrated circuit and a fluorescence excitation and acquisition module. The digital microfluidic chip is connected with the integrated circuit; and the fluorescence excitation and acquisition module is connected with the digital microfluidic chip and the integrated circuit respectively. According to the fluorescence liquid drop sorting system based on the digital microfluidics, disclosed by the invention, generation, transportation and sorting processes of liquid drops are carried out based on an on-chip dielectric wetting principle, so that a realization mechanism of the third party does not need to be added and the miniaturization of the system is relatively easy to realize; and single liquid drops are manipulated and analyzed in the processes, and a biochemical staining and fluorescence protein marking technology is combined, so that the fluorescence liquid drop sorting system can be used for detecting and sorting single cells, secreted proteins or microorganisms, and is used for the fields of early-stage disease diagnosis and treatment and the like.

The invention belongs to the technical field of digital micro-fluidics, and in particular relates to a liquid drop mixing unit based on an electro-wetting digital micro-fluid chip. The mixing unit comprises three parts consisting of an inlet zone, a mixing zone and an outlet zone; the fast, high-efficiency, automatic and reliable mixing of the liquid drops can be realized via the special bidirectional driving electrode and closed-loop electrode arrangement and simplified electrode connection mode. The liquid drop mixing unit has the advantages of novel design, easiness in control, high reliability, excellent practicability, high automation degree, and the like, so that the liquid drop mixing unit can be widely used in various digital micro-fluid chips.

A disposable cartridge had body, bottom layer with first hydrophobic surface, top layer with a second hydrophobic surface, and gap between. The bottom layer is a flexible film sealingly attached at its circumference to the top layer. No spacer is between the layers. The top layer has loading sites for transferring processing liquids into the gap. In use, the bottom layer is a working film for manipulating samples in liquid droplets and is placed on an electrode array of a digital microfluidics system having base unit with cartridge accommodation site and electrode array at the site. The electrode array is supported by a bottom substrate that extends in a first plane and has individual electrodes. The system also includes a central control unit for controlling selection of the electrodes and for providing these electrodes with individual voltage pulses for manipulating liquid droplets within the gap by electrowetting.

The invention belongs to the technical field of digital microfluidics and in particular provides an accurate droplet generation technology based on an electrowetting-on-dielectric digital microfluidic chip. The technology is characterized by being realized by virtue of design of driving electrodes of the digital microfluidic chip and driving signal operation, wherein in the droplet fission and generation position, special micro-electrodes are used for forming an electrode group to replace traditional single electrodes; when used integrally, the electrode group is identical with conventional electrodes and can achieve droplet pull-out while the micro-electrodes in the electrode group can achieve stable and accurate droplet fission through independent driving signal operation, thus achieving accurate droplet generation. The technology is simple in achievement structure, is compatible with the chips in the current field, is convenient to control, can be used for greatly improving the droplet generation accuracy in the field of digital microfluidics and has great significance for commercial application.