Abstract
This study reports an integrated automatic microfluidic system for detection of allergy in a microarray platform. Nowadays, allergy is very common in the world. It is a response of the human immune system to antigens in the surroundings. However, detection for allergy requires tedious manual operation, well-trained technicians and a relatively labor-intensive process. In the study, an integrated microfluidic system has been developed by combining several microfluidic techniques and microarray chips. Our previous experiments showed that a microfluidic system for allergy-diagnosis on microarray chips could be realized. It was demonstrated that after mass fabrication, the use of optimized conditions could obtain the similar fluorescence signals to the ones from manual processes and it only took only 20 minutes for the single reaction zone. In order to cut down costs and simplify the process, a new microfluidic system capable of simultaneous multiplex allergy-diagnosis was developed in this work. Experimental results demonstrated that multiplex reaction zones showed similar signals. Not only could it obtain the signals comparable to the on-bench experiments, but it also could increase the applicability of the integrated microfluidic system for automating multiplex detection on allergy microarray chips.