A MICROFABRICATED DEVICE AND METHOD FOR MULTIPLEXED ELECTROKINETIC FOCUSING OF FLUID STREAMS AND A TRANSPORT CYTOMETRY METHOD USING SAME

摘要

One embodiment of the present invention provides a microchip (10) adapted for the simultaneous spatial confinement of electrokinetically driven fluidic material streams on the microchip. The microchip includes a focusing chamber (22) formed in the surface of the microchip and in fluid communication with two sample channels (28, 30) and three focusing channels (32, 40, 42). The embodiment further includes electromotive means operatively connected to the sources of the sample fluids (14, 18) and the sources of focusing fluid (12, 16, 20) for electrokinetically driving the respective streams of the sample and focusing fluids such that the focusing fluid streams spatially confine the first and second sample streams within the focusing chamber. Another embodiment of the present invention provides a cytometry method for analyzing microscopic particles in a fluid medium on a microchip by utilizing the focusing function of the microchip. In this process the width of the fluid stream is narrowed in the focusing chamber.