High-efficiency microarray of 3-D carbon MEMS electrodes for pathogen detection systems

Molecular diagnostic applications for pathogen detections require the ability to separate pathogens such as bacteria, viruses, etc., from a biological sample of blood or saliva. Over the past several years, conventional two-dimensional active microarrays have been used with success for the manipulation of biomolecules including DNA. However, they have a major drawback of inability to process relatively 'largevolume' samples useful In infectious disease diagnostics applications. This paper presents an active microarray of three-dimensional carbon electrodes that exploits electrokinetic forces for transport, accumulation, and hybridization of charged bio-molecules with an added advantage of large volume capability. Tall 3-dimensional carbon microelectrode posts are fabricated using C-MEMS (Carbon MEMS) technology that is emerging as a very exciting research area since carbon has fascinating physical, chemical, mechanical and electrical properties In addition to its low cost. The chip fabricated using C-MEMS technology is packaged and Its efficiency of separation and accumulation of charged particle established by manipulating negatively charged polycarboxylate 2 μm beads in 50 mM histidine buffer.