Award Address (ACS Award in Chromatography, sponsored by SUPELCO, Inc). Microfabricated chemical separations devices

ANYL 355

J. Michael Ramsey, jmramsey@unc.edu, Department of Chemistry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 251 Chapman Hall, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3216
There has been rapidly growing interest in microfabricated fluidic devices (microchips) over the past decade. The diversity of chemical and biochemical measurement techniques that have been implemented on microchips includes various electrophoretic and chromatographic separations, chemical and enzymatic reactions, noncovalent recognition interactions, sample concentration enhancement, and cellular manipulations. In addition, the types of samples addressed by microchips has been broad in scope, e.g., small ions and molecules, single and double stranded DNA, amino acids, peptides, and proteins. These devices have low cost and small footprints while consuming miniscule quantities of reagents and can rapidly produce precise results. All of these features suggest the possibility to perform chemical and biochemical experimentation on a massive scale at low cost on a bench top, a goal being pursued by many laboratories around the world. We will present the status of our efforts to further improve microfabricated chemical separations systems.