SYSTEM INTEGRATION OF MICROSYSTEMS CHIP ELEMENTS IN MINIATURIZED AUTOMATA FOR HIGH-THROUGHPUT SYNTHESIS AND SCREENING IN BIOLOGY, BIOCHEMISTRY AND CHEMISTRY

Microsystems recently have been introduced as tools for screening in m odern chemistry, biochemistry and biology. It has been shown that new microsystems can be implemented in the biomedical laboratory by using the microsystemic approach for the sample carrier-the miniaturized mic rotiter plate (''the nanotiter plate'')-or the production of nanodropl ets with ink jetters and to integrate those systems in macrodevices li ke xyz tables and detection devices like CCD-cameras. We show in this paper that decisive problems of the approach-the evaporation problem a nd the problem of chemical/biochemical/biological compatibility of the assays and the used materials can be solved successfully. It is possi ble to realize chemical synthesis in miniaturized flow systems and to perform isothermal amplification of RNA in silicon wafers. Furthermore real high throughput screening with in vivo systems can be performed and all relevant parameters as evaporation, pipetting and detection ca n be controlled on reasonable time scales.