A Novel Plug n Play MEMS-Based DNA Microarray

K. Jindal [1], V. Grover [1], B. Nayak [1],
[1] Birla Institute of Technology and Science - Pilani, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
Published in 2016

Microarrays are extensively used in modern biology as tools of multiplexed, high throughput analysis to study thousands of genes and their expression inside cells at once [1]. The basic principle of a microarray is quantitative detection of fluorophore tagged DNA. Use of this method results in microarray experiments being expensive and complex due to fragile and costly fluorophores and instrumentation required to analyse them. Previously, MEMS based DNA sensors have been implemented [2,3], though at a small scale, sensing less than 10 DNA sequences. These sensors suffer from poor signal to noise ratio, cantilever to cantilever variation and impractical scaling of sensing techniques. In this report, we analyse and propose solutions to such problems and also propose a novel DNA chip of scale comparable to microarrays that does fluorophore free detection and also design circuitry to directly interface it to a computer, bypassing need of additional analysis instruments (Figure1).