Nano bioresearch approach by microtechnology

To progress in basic science and drug development, convenient methodology for detecting specific biological molecules and their interaction in living organism is in high demand. After more than 20 years of increasing research efforts, micro and nanotechnologies are now mature to propose a new class of miniature devices and principles enabling compartmentalized bioassays. Among them, this review proposes various examples that include array of electro-active microwells for highly parallel single cell analysis, cost-effective nanofluidic for DNA separation, parallel enzymatic reaction in 100 pL droplet and high-throughput platform for membrane proteins assays. The micro devices are presented with relevant experiments to foresee their future contribution to translational research and drug discovery.

► Micro and nanotechnologies provides new class of devices for drug discovery.
► Electroactive microwell arrays permit parallelized analysis of cell.
► Low cost nanofluidic devices reach size long DNA separation by size.
► Enzymatic reaction can be performed by liquid dielectrophoresis handling.
► Miniaturized planar bilayer membrane platform permits drug detection.