micro nano pico scale engineering

Microarray Fabrication and Assay Development

Piezoelectric dispensing systems are amendable for many diverse kinds of assay formats. In the biotech space, this ranges from cell lysate, antibody, DNA, transfection and cell culture arrays. In addition to biotech, this equipment has been used for other microarray applications like thermochromatic ink patterns, chemical standards and microneedle arrays. For the most part, the HTS Resources lab is very focused on antibody and cell lysate assay formats. Provided are services that address product validation issues as well as providing biological content.

The lab's capabilities are not limited to just microarray fabrication, it is also possible to realize the total assay development process. The lab includes the appropriate imaging equipment for generating high resolution data and there is established requisite computational techniques and bioinformatic expertise to facilitate both efficient and effective data analysis.

  • Microarray Fabrication
    • Spotting microarrays no matter what equipment you have can be very challenging. There runs the risk of ruining expensive materials and expending valuable set up time. Given that HTS Resources is a commercial vendor for microarray fabrication equipment, the expertise in optimizing spotting procedures is second to none! Customizable are operational software development that can also include techniques for assuring quality control. Purely on the standpoint of generating content quickly and effectively the lab is an excellent resource.

  • Workflows for Assay Development
    • Developing workflows requires the understanding a given assay's biochemistry and how it can formatted to meet precision automated procedures. It is possible to develop assays that are optimized for sensitivity while also addressing requirements to meet statistical validation. In addition to piezoelectic dispensing tools, the laboratory has accumilated other complementary instruments and procedures for high throughput processing.


      • Microwell fabrication using a sol-gel dispensing method, the well heights fit in a conventional micrarray scanner.
  • Programming and informatics
    • To complement assay development, we have developed a variety of custom laboratory information systems (LIMS) that sufficiently steamline the data collection process and effectively track and correlate the steps involved with the entire experimental procedure. Listed below diagrams our informatic competences:

    • Robotic programming: Through the Nano-Plotter platform, it is possible to set up intricate liquid handling routines with or without optical target recognition.
    • Image processing: Provided are a number of customized options for microarray image processing.
    • Research informatics: Integrated custom database architectures and LIMS. Core programming competences are PHP, PERL, Python and MySQL in either Windows or Linux environments.