Microfabricated Qlisa Biosensors with an Embedded Mixing Element

Optically transduced microfluidic immunoassays have proven to be a highly sensitive and rapid method to assess the concentrations of analytes within biological samples. Although microfluidic immunoassays facilitate higher throughput and automation than standard microtiter plates, the immunoreaction within such devices remains diffusion limited unless there is a way to achieve recursive or continuous sample flow. We aim to circumvent this issue and accelerate the immunoreaction by developing a microfluidic immunosensor with an integrated set of electrodes to facilitate electrothermal flow resulting from joule heating. We have demonstrated superior mixing and sensitivity with our novel quantum dot linked immunoassay biosensor platform, effectively reducing sample incubation times and reagent consumption compared to the standard microtiter plate immunoassay format.