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Utilizing nanotechnology, proprietary chemistry, and microfluidics, innovative firms are developing biochips and instrument systems that enable high-speed automated biomedical sequencing. Incom Inc. presents development results on five novel biochip technologies based on FiberOptic MicroSlide and microcapillary technology. FiberOptic MicroSlides are fiber optic interrogated (FOI) biochips made up of millions of fused optical fibers, and are uniquely suited as a platform for microarray applications. FiberOptic MicroSlides (henceforth referred to as "MicroSlides" or "slides" in this paper) act as a 'zero thickness substrate' transmitting optical signals from top to bottom without spreading, so that fluorescent or luminescent activity on the surface or within a well can be directly coupled to a CCD device without additional optics. In contrast to bulk optics, the slides are compact and have excellent light-gathering power. They are an alternative to conventional microscope slides for applications involving moderate-resolution bottom viewing (inverted microscopy). The surface of the MicroSlides can be etched or patterned with a permanent polymer to form microwell arrays, or microfluidic structures suitable for genomic and proteomic analysis, cell migration studies and other applications. Low-cost microcapillary array plates have also been developed. These plates act as microscopic test tubes, which enable picoliter reactions to be detected, counted and analyzed. Progress in developing large area (300 mm X 300 mm) arrays with up to 100 million capillaries, and diameter / length aspect ratios up to 10,000: 1 is presented. Results demonstrate negligible optical cross talk between capillaries, resulting in improved signal-to-noise ratios while minimizing false hits.
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