Rapid assaying of miniaturized protein microarray

The demand for portable, multiplexed, rapid biosensing platforms is still an unmet need, since current biosensors detect one or a very limited number of targets simultaneously. Microarrays have the potential of multiplexed detection, but they are not portable (due to heavy and expensive “scanners”) and additionally require long incubation (with the sample) time. In this work we have miniaturized protein microarrays using Nano- fountain pen (NFP) allowing us to integrate them within microchannels, thus making first steps towards portability. Given the drastically reduced dimensions in the microfluidic system we are able to monitor the fluorescent signal in real time, precisely determine the time point of equilibrium, and perform the readout. We thus are able to obtain results within a few minutes, compared with a few hours in standard microarray protocols.