An Integrated Microarray Printing and Detection System

DESCRIPTIONprovided by applicantMicroarray technology has dramatically advanced the study of protein interactions leading to discovery and validation of new biomarkers and therapeutic drugsTypicallyprotein microarrays are pre spotted with target molecules in one device and then tested with probe molecules using another deviceDuring each testing cyclethe entire microarray becomes exposed to the probe moleculesThough this approach has been shown to be effective for some applicationsit inherently suffers from several key limitations that hinder it from gaining broader utilityboth the printing and analysis steps consume large sample volumeswhich is particularly problematic where only small amounts of proteins are available or affordablethe exposure of sample solution to the entire microarray restricts the kinetic interaction analysis of only one probe to N targetsXN interactions onlysignificantly limiting the types of applications and analytical power of microarraysandcomplete microarrays must be pre printed blindly with no feedback on spot uniformitytarget activityor probe selectivity which may lead to inconclusive dataunnecessary testsand delays in obtaining effective resultsWe propose an Integrated Microarray Printing and Detection SystemIMPDSto address the key limitations restricting the analytical power and broader appeal of microarray technologyIMPDS will have the ability to incorporate feedback of microarray formation and testing in order to generate more relevant results soonerperform high resolution droplet based testing with ultra low nanoliter volume samplesconduct a more versatile M x Nmany to manyprotein kinetic interaction analysis of high density microarraysand measure molecular interactions and binding kinetics in cell based microarraysIMPDS relies upon the careful integration of two core technologies into a single instrumenta novel ultra low volume piezoelectric liquid dispensing system anda proprietaryhigh resolutiondistortion free surface plasmon resonance imagingDF SPRisystemThe success of this project will lead to a new commercializable microarray technology capable ofstreamlining microarray spotting and detection into a single instrument for simplerfastermore accurate resultsultra low volume nanodroplet based analysis of high density microarraysflexible and multiplexed M x N label free protein interaction kinetic analyses in real timecell based microarray analyses with single cell resolutionThis project will bring together strengths from Biosensing Instrument IncBIan innovator and global supplier of high performance SPR instrumentsand from the Center for Bioelectronics and Biosensorsthe Biodesign Institute at Arizona State UniversityASUinventors of the piezoelectric liquid dispensing technologyTogether we will develop IMPDS into a powerful tool for commercial use in high throughput protein interaction studies leading to the discovery and validation of new molecular diagnostic biomarkers and new therapeutic drugs PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCEThis project aims to develop an integrated microarray printing and detection systemIMPDSthat enables high throughput analysis of protein interactions kinetics in microarray or whole cell based formatsBy use of droplet based reactionsIMPDS can measure many to many molecular interactions with a single deviceThe success of this project will lead to a powerful tool to study protein interactions leading to the discovery and validation of new molecular diagnostic biomarkers and new therapeutic drugs