Gradient Dielectrophoresis and Separations-Based Arrays

So called ?dirty' and messy complex samples from biological and environmental sources require significant processing to present a simplified and clean fraction to detection elements. In many cases, it is desirable to provide for analysis of multiple analytes from a single sample, such that specific targets are isolated and concentrated away from background and other analytes. Further, there is a significant push to miniaturize and create one step processing based on microfluidic systems. Here we present to interrelated techniques to take real world biological and environmental samples, remove unwanted background particulate debris, and then isolated and concentrate targets in a highly parallelized format. The two techniques are DC insulator-based gradient dielectrophoresis and parallel electrophoretic capture. Preliminary results show the ability to differentially isolated particles ranging from 20 nm to 1 micron using various physical parameters, increasing their local concentration by up to one million times. For molecular targets, small molecules to proteins have been differentially isolated and concentrated in specific sub-microliter volumes demonstrating the utility of the approach across the entire range of targets of interest. We envision being able to uniquely isolate and concentrate particulates (cells, viruses, bacteria, spores, organelles, etc.), process them and execute highly parallelized molecular isolation and concentration on a large number of targets reaching maximum detection limits and dynamic range.