A dependable microelectronic peptide synthesizer using electrode data

The research in the area of microelectronic fluidic devices for biomedical applications is rapidly growing. As faults in these devices can have serious personal implications, a system is presented which includes fault tolerance with respect to the synthesized biomaterials (peptides). It can employ presence and purity detection of peptide droplets via current (charge) tests of control electrodes or impedance (phase) measurements using direct sensing electrodes near the peptide collector area. The commercial multielectrode array performs better in pure and impure detection of peptides in impedance and phase. Our two-electrode X-MEF case shows slightly poorer results. In both cases the phase is the best choice for contents detection. If there are presence or purity problems, the location is marked, and repeated peptide synthesis at another collector site is initiated.