Microfluidic darwinian evolution

Abstract

Directed evolution is the application of Darwinian principles to populations of molecules. Repeated rounds of selection, mutagenesis, and amplification yield macromolecules with desired chemical functions. Conventional approaches are necessarily ad hoc, relegating the control of experimental parameters such as selection pressure and mutagenesis to guesswork. We have constructed the first chip-based system that interfaces computer control with Darwinian evolution to eliminate manual sample manipulation and to provide real-time feedback describing evolutionary progress. © 2008 CBMS.