MEMS technologies in life sciences

MEMS technologies have come of age. They are ubiquitous in many applications in life sciences and have entered the clinic. Micro-fabricated silicon cantilevers arrays offer a novel label-free approach where ligand-receptor binding interactions occurring on the sensor generate nanomechanical signals like bending or a change in mass, which is optically detected in-situ. It enables the detection of multiple unlabeled biomolecules simultaneously down to picomolar concentrations within minutes in differential measurements including reference cantilevers on arrays of eight sensors. Further applications include monitoring of gene expression in interferon treatment and efficacy testing in melanoma cancer treatment based on total RNA samples.