Towards high density biosensors for mobile diagnostics

Research studies in medicine, genetics and process monitoring technology generally go together with advances in nano-engineering. Furthermore, advances in engineering, control and automation on the nano scale first enable so far impossible studies in molecular and cellular biology. This fruitful interaction leads to the design and development of new setups and methods, which push the boundaries for possible experiments in the area of handling and manipulation of biomaterials. In our paper the latest work on two areas of this research focus is shown. 1) Within the last years, the AFM was used for the handling and manipulation of biomaterials. However, the automation to use the AFM for industrial processes needs a robust and accurate automation. In this paper we also present the latest work on the automation of AFM based methods. 2) In the future, mobile diagnostics will become more and more important. To enable robust, fast and precise systems, new methods for the design and structuring of the necessary bio-components are needed. For this, a possible approach to structure bio-components from several nm up to a few μm is presented in this paper as well. 3) First simulations and principles for the design of a new signal acquisition unit are shown, to set up diagnostic systems without complex optical setups or fluorescence dyes.