Achievement

IGERT-Lifechips fellow, Sara Saedinia, works on an optimum method for miniaturization of Western Blotting with two divided parts: electophoresis and blotting step. First is to have successful electrophoresis. Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis refers to the motion of a charged particle due to applied electric field in the polyacrylamide gel. This method has been used in the biology labs to quantify proteins. It uses large apparatus and takes long to perform. Sara finds building the micro-scale version of this method would improve the quality of the signal, reduce the time of electrophoresis, and tremendously reduce the amount of proteins needed for blotting step analysis. Sara uses Poly (methylmetharylate) known as PMMA as first substrate. It takes 20 minutes to perform gel electrophoresis compare to 1 hour with less than 1ul of sample. Finally, Sara has built a micro-scale electrophoresis system on the PMMA channel and is working PDMS as the substrate for the microfluidic channel.