Integrating aptamers and microfluidics for biological manipulation and sensing

We present an overview of our efforts to integrate aptamers and microfluidic devices, including manipulation of biomolecules and cells using aptamers, and isolation of target-binding nucleic acids. The aptamer-based devices for target manipulation are capable of specific analyte extraction and enrichment as well as isocratic elution, and can be coupled to biodetection systems for highly sensitive analyte detection. The microfluidic devices for isolation of target-binding nucleic acids demonstrate the potential for integrated selection of aptamers having predefined binding characteristics against a broad spectrum of practically important biological analytes.