Recent technological advances in genotyping and DNA sequencing platforms have enabled ever larger and more ambitious projects aimed at understanding the genetic basis of human disease. Specialized biobanks have emerged to meet the needs of these studies by providing for the centralized collection, storage and management of 100,000's of samples. Maintaining the quality of such large collections requires significant expenditure of time and effort with currently available techniques. The goal of this project is to develop an automated and low-cost DNA quality control solution for use in biobanks. The proposed device will combine droplet-based """"""""Digital Microfluidic"""""""" sample handling and real-time PCR with gel electrophoresis in a single unified disposable cartridge. In addition to performing quantitation and quality assessment by sizing, the device will detect contamination (i.e. bacterial DNA) in the sample by real-time PCR.
The aims of the Phase I project are to establish the feasibility of implementing and then integrating each of these processes in a single device. Subsequent work in Phase II would be focused on automating all aspects of the process on a full prototype and scaling-up the number of samples to enable high-throughput multiplexed operation.
The goal of this project is to develop a quality control device to improve the quality and reduce the cost of large genetic studies using samples provided through biobanks.
