A polymer based biochip for rapid 2-D separations of peptides, proteins, and other biomedically relevant molecules was
designed and fabricated. Like traditional 2D polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (2D-PAGE) methods, the device will
allow molecules to separate based on isoelectric point (pI) and molecular weight (MW). The design, however, integrates
both an initial capillary isoelectric focusing (cIEF) step followed by capillary electrophoresis (CE) in multiple parallel
channels, all on a single microfluidic chip. Not only is the "lab-on-a-chip" design easier to use and less expensive, but
the miniaturization of the device produces very rapid separations, on the order of seconds. Fluorescence detection will
be used in the preliminary stages of testing, but the device is also equipped with integrated electrodes in the
electrophoresis channels to perform multiplexed electrochemical detection for quantitative analysis. We present the chip
design and fabrication, as well as the initial test results demonstrating cIEF and CE with one analyte. Furthermore, we
introduce preliminary work on the use of a polyacrylamide gel in the electrophoresis channels.
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