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In this work, we present a microfluidic platform which is capable of carrying out a series of laboratorial operations on a disposable chip. The platform employs coil arrays to transport biological samples attached on magnetic beads through different reaction zones in aqueous solutions. Micromachined thermopneumatic valves are adopted as the interfaces between sequential reactions. The self-contained system is composed of a disposable microfluidic reaction (MFR) chip and a fluidic driving/sensing (FDS) module. Various reaction zones with different functionalities are implemented on the MFR chip. Arrays of coils and micromachined heater/sensing chips are integrated into the FDS module. Also, novel indirect-heating thermo-pneumatic valves (IH-TPVs), which are monolithically integrated into the disposable MFR chip, are proposed and characterized. With an applied voltage of 3.2V, the IH-TPV effectively isolates two adjacent reaction zones, while its temperature elevation is sufficiently low for biological samples and reagents. By employing the proposed approach, we design and implement a miniaturized biochip system which carries out the processes of DNA extraction, purification and amplification from whole blood sample. The dimension of the fully-integrated system is 72 mm×54 mm×11 mm, and the system could be fully operated with a 12 V DC power supply. DNA extraction and purification from human whole blood followed by PCR amplification for the 122 bp segment is successfully performed by using the system.

The development of a flexible 32 × 32 temperature and tactile sensing array, which will serve as the artificial skin for robot applications, is presented in this work. Pressure conductive rubber is employed as the tactile sensing material, and discrete temperature sensor chips are employed as the temperature sensing cells. Small disks of pressure conductive rubber are bonded on predefined interdigital copper electrode pairs which are patterned on a flexible copper–polyimide substrate which is fabricated by micromachining techniques. This approach can effectively reduce the crosstalk between each tactile sensing element. The mechanical and electrical properties of tactile sensing elements are measured. Also, the corresponding scanning circuits are designed and implemented. The temperature and tactile sensing elements are heterogeneously integrated on the flexible substrate. By using the integrated 32 × 32 sensing arrays, temperature and tactile images induced by the heaters/stamps of different shapes have been successfully measured. The flexible sensor arrays are bendable down to a 4-mm radius without any degradation in functionality.

A nuclear encoded mitochondrial heat-shock protein hsp60 is required for the assembly into oligomeric complexes of proteins imported into the mitochondrial matrix. hsp60 is a member of the 'chaperonin' class of protein factors, which include the Escherichia coli groEL protein and the Rubisco subunit-binding protein of chloroplasts.