Development of micro total analysis system for detection of water pathogens

Abstract

This thesis reports on a fast method for detection of water pathogen using micro-total analysis system. Our system consisted of a micro-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) chip integrated with a continuous-flow microarray. Both of our micro-PCR chip and microarray were silicon/glass hybrid biochip fabricated based on micro-electro-mechanical system technology and were integrated at packaged-level using an acrylic housing. Escherichia coli is used as our target pathogen sample as it an EPA approved indicator and is considered to be one of the species of bacteria that is the best indicator of fecal pollution. The pathogen sample has been successfully detected in our micro total analysis system through DNA amplification by the micro-PCR chip follow by directed transfer of the amplicons to the microarray for detection. The analysis time for our system was completed within a few hours as compared with existing EPA approved methods 9131 and 9132.