Publications

Towards synthetic biology in a chip: An integrated digital microfluidic platform for transformation, culture and expression

Gach, Philip C.; Shih, Steve C.C.; Sustarich, Jess; Hillson, Nathan J.; Adams, Paul D.; Singh, Anup K.

Synthetic biology experiments require optimization of pathways consisting of many genes and other genetic elements and given the large number of alternatives available for each element, optimization of a pathway can require large number of experiments consuming prohibitively-expensive amounts of DNA and enzymes. Digital microfluidics (DMF), because of its ability to process small volumes, presents a cost-effective solution for conducting high-throughput cloning and expression experiments. We describe the first DMF device for automating all critical steps of transformation and culture including plasmid addition, transformation by heat-shock, addition of selection medium, culture and expression of GFP.