| Institution: | (1) Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA;(2) Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA;(3) Department of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA;(4) Present address: The Division of Solid State Physics, Lund University, Lund, Sweden;(5) Present address: The Division of Solid State Physics, Lund University, Lund, Sweden;(6) Present address: BioNanomatrix, Blawenburg, NJ, USA |
| Abstract: | Miniaturization to the micrometer and nanometer scale opens up the possibility to probe biology on a length scale where fundamental biological processes take place, such as the epigenetic and genetic control of single cells. To study single cells the necessary devices need to be integrated on a single chip; and, to access the relevant length scales, the devices need to be designed with feature sizes of a few nanometers up to several micrometers. We will give a few examples from the literature and from our own research in the field of miniaturized chip-based devices for DNA analysis, including dielectrophoresis for purification of DNA, artificial gel structures for rapid DNA separation, and nanofluidic channels for direct visualization of single DNA molecules. |
