MAGNETIC MICROPARTICLE BASED DNA EXTRACTION IN A DROPLET MICROFLUIDIC CHIP

We are reporting an efficient method for magnetic microparticle based DNA extraction on a segmented flow microfluidic platform [1]. The droplet splitter and the magnetic setup were optimized separately to achieve highest separation efficiency. The novel asymmetric droplet splitter was developed allowing for dynamic control and arbitrary selection of droplet splitting ratios between 50:50 and 95:5. Further, the magnet position and orientation were optimized via numerical modeling and experiments. The optimized microflidic system was used for microparticle-based DNA extraction, resulting in 97% of microbead separation efficiency, 90% DNA capture efficiency, while removing 90% of original volume in single step.