Maskless Lithography System for Generation of High Density DNA Microarrays

Recent developments in DNA microarray generation technology have made entirely new methods of gene analysis feasible. The DNA microarray can greatly facilitate research in the areas of drug and vaccine discovery, disease screening, and toxicology, amongothers. Therefore, the importance of a low-cost, high-resolution, high-throughput DNA microarray generation system cannot be understated. Current DNA microarray generation techniques suffer from severe limitations. The development of a new DNAmircoarray generation technique that has the high resolution of photolithography with the low cost of operation of mechanical deposition would significantly accelerate the pace of gene research. In this proposal, we present a method to generate DNAmicroarrays using a maskless lithography system. The maskless lithography system incorporates a large-array spatial light modulator to serve as a programmable mask. The spatial light modulator technology is integrated with Anvik's patented seamlessscanning technology to produce a breakthrough in lithography system development that allows rapid, high-density DNA microarray generation at low cost. In the Phase I program, we will optimize the design the lithography system and develop the processspecifically for DNA microarray generation. In a follow-on Phase II program, we will optimize the process and construct a fully functional DNA microarray generation system.The proposed system will enable the generation of DNA microarrays at higherdensities, higher throughputs and lower costs than possible with current manufacturing techniques. These advances will benefit numerous military and commercial researchers in the areas of drug and vaccine discovery, disease screening, toxicology, andbiological warfare agent detection.