The goal of this research is to develop a continuous flow microchip reactor for producing RNA transcripts of cDNA. The idea is to linearly amplify RNA through its conversion to cDNA and then linearly amplify this by repeated transcription of new RNA. This has advantages over PCR, in that the amplification is linear in time or throughput rather than exponential as in PCR, and thus less prone to bias than is PCR. Preliminary results include creation of a microfluidic particle-bed reactor, and mastery of the basic biochemical reactions. The proposed work includes considerable optimization of channel dimensions and reaction conditions. One aim of the research is the creation of a kinetic model of the reactor.
