Abstract
This study bases on the technique, “Electrowetting on Dielectric (EWOD),” and we design micro-heaters on the cover of a EWOD chip as proper temperature sources for biomedical detection. Droplets in a EWOD chip are actuated by addressable electrodes. Multiple bio-reagents such as DNA, nano-magnetic beads and buffer droplets have been manipulated by the EWOD system already. Due to the nano-magnetic beads property that can be collected and purified, it can use to detect a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in specific gene sequence. Above these, the final goal of this research is efficiently using temperature-controllable EWOD digital microfluidics system for SNP detection in specific gene sequence. The micro-heaters are fabricated on glass substrate by Pt deposition. After the heater circuit design, they are constructed with bottom chip to complete the packaging of temperature-controllable EWOD system. In this study, micro-heaters in a EWOD system can provide proper temperature for DNA ligase in SNP detection experiments. In the end, we successfully use temperature-controllable EWOD digital microfluidics system to detect SNP code in specific gene sequence, and this research will contribute to biomedical diagnosis.