Works at Academia Sinica

384 DNA synthesizer

384 oligonucleotide Synthesizer: PC based systems with GUI sends commands to Parker AT6250 motion control card and IO module to move nozzle seat for reagent injection in X-Y direction via two stepper motors according to the programmed coordinate, and then turn on the solenoid valves to inject a variety of chemical reagents into reaction wells. These synthesizers consume less reagents and synthesize more (384 or 1536) sequences of oligonucleotide at single operation. Their productivity outnumbers any commercial ones.

1536 DNA synthesizer

1536 oligonucleotide Synthesizer: Four modules of 384 oligonucleotide synthesizer were built together to boost the productivity to 1536 custom oligonucleotide in each synthesis operation. Implementation of tile injection nozzles and 4 times of solenoid valves to achieve simultaneous synthesis eliminate the need of 4-fold of time for synthesis.

Micro Arrayer

Micro Arrayer: A PC based system with GUI to set up parameters like number of spotting pin, pitch, copies and substrate material, sends commands to 2 Parker AT6250 motion cards and IO module to control a robotic arm and XYZ positioning systems. The former one is to hold, deliver and place the sample tray in or out of storage rack array to XYZ positioning system. Via XYZ system, spotting pins would dip the oligonucleotide sample in plate and spot on slide or membrane to deploy the oligonucleotide probes for later hybridization with fluorescent labeled targets.

In situ synthesizer

In-Situ Synthesizer: Simultaneous synthesis and arraying of DNA chip saves time and chemical reagents when few chips are needed only. First of all, we perform surface modification on slides; following the synthesis of oligonucleotide on spin stage. We address the points with volume of deblocking reagent in pico-liter scale by piezo-electric pipettes to attain high density. Then the spin stage would spin and coat the slide while reagent being sprayed to accelerate the synthesis process of oligonucleotides.

Sensitive Protein Detector with Aptamers by GNP Resonance Light Scattering

Under exposure to light source, intensity of light scattering from gold nanoparticles (GNP) would increase dramatically with the increment of its diameter size in the power of 6 within Rayleigh range. At the beginning, we conjugate TBA3 and TBA5 to the surface of GNPs respectively. Then a reshaped beam emitted from 638nm laser in an optical system passes through solution with TBA3-GNP and TBA5-GNP complexes in the molecular ratio of 1:1 in a cuvette. A photodiode collects and converts scattering light into voltage as background signal to DAQ connecting to PC. Thrombin is added and reacts to TBA3 and TBA5 conjugated to GNP to form bigger complex by aggregation for their affinity. The change of its diameter size would boost the intensity of scattering light and result in the augmented voltage signal. To maximize detection sensitivity, GNP with diameter of 60nm is adopted for its higher differential light scattering amplitude at 638 nm before and after aggregation.