Recent advances in microfluidic technologies for biochemistry and molecular biology

Abstract

Advances in the fields of proteomics and genomics have necessitated the development of high-throughput screening methods (HTS) for the systematic transformation of large amounts of biological/ chemical data into an organized database of knowledge. Microfluidic systems are ideally suited for high-throughput biochemical experimentation since they offer high analytical throughput, consume minute quantities of expensive biological reagents, exhibit superior sensitivity and functionality compared to traditional micro-array techniques and can be integrated within complex experimental work flows. A range of basic biochemical and molecular biological operations have been transferred to chipbased microfluidic formats over the last decade, including gene sequencing, emulsion PCR, immunoassays, electrophoresis, cellbased assays, expression cloning and macromolecule blotting. In this review, we highlight some of the recent advances in the application of microfluidics to biochemistry and molecular biology.