Design and development of a microarray processing station (MPS) for automated miniaturized immunoassays

Here we describe the design and evaluation of a fluidic device for the automatic processing of microarrays, called microarray processing station or MPS. The microarray processing station once installed on a commercial microarrayer allows automating the washing, and drying steps, which are often performed manually. The substrate where the assay occurs remains on place during the microarray printing, incubation and processing steps, therefore the addressing of nL volumes of the distinct immunoassay reagents such as capture and detection antibodies and samples can be performed on the same coordinate of the substrate with a perfect alignment without requiring any additional mechanical or optical re-alignment methods. This allows the performance of independent immunoassays in a single microarray spot.