Applications of ink-jet printing technology to BioMEMS and microfluidic systems

Applications of microfluidics and MEMS (micro-electromechanical systems) technology are emerging in many areas of biological and life sciences. Non-contact microdispensing systems for accurate, high-throughput deposition of bioactive fluids can be an enabling technology for these applications. In addition to bioactive fluid dispensing, ink-jet based microdispensing allows integration of features (electronic, photonic, sensing, structural, etc.) that are not possible, or very difficult, with traditional photolithographic-based MEMS fabrication methods. Our single fluid and mutlifluid (MatrixJet(TM)) piezoelectric microdispensers have been used for spot synthesis of peptides, production of microspheres to deliver drugs/biological materials, microprinting of biodegradable polymers for cell proliferation in tissue engineering requirements, and spot deposition for DNA, diagnostic immunoassay, antibody and protein arrays. We have created optical elements, sensors, and electrical interconnects by microdeposition of polymers and metal alloys. We have also demonstrated the integration of a reverse phase microcolumn within a piezoelectric dispenser for use in the fractionation of peptides for mass spectrometer analysis.