| Microarray is an ordered and highly dense arrangement of gene segments on a laboratory slide and is used for the analysis of thousands of genes in a single experiment. The genes are placed on the slide through a process of liquid spotting using techniques such as dispensing pins. Contact pin spotting technology is primarily used because high spot-density is attainable. On the other hand, pin spotting requires the accommodation of the following time-consuming processes: (i) cleaning of pins, (ii) loading the solutions onto the pins, (iii) removing the excess solution from pins for a uniform spot size, and (iv) spotting.; This thesis specifically investigates optimization of the first three aforementioned time-consuming processes in order to increase the productivity of the pin-based microarray slides preparation. Analysis and simulation performed in this research show that the optimal hole-diameter of the vacuum-based cleaning system for stealth micro-spotting pin is 2.4 mm. For this diameter the highest shear stress on the entire pin can be obtained. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
