Abstract

Nucleic Acid Microarrays: Physicochemical Perspectives and Future Prospects

Rastislav Levicky, Associate Professor, NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering

DNA microarrays are used in thousands of research studies annually as well as, increasingly, for clinical applications. While they provide affordable and convenient multiplexing, these technologies are also subject to limitations including from noisy data, from constraints on dynamic range, and from biases such as can be introduced by enzymatic or other processing of samples. This talk will overview the current state of DNA microarrays, discuss physicochemical aspects of surface hybridization as encountered in microarray experiments, and provide suggestions on how these technologies can be advanced beyond their current capabilities. Features of hybridization on solid supports and how it relates to the better understood case of solution hybridization will be addressed, as will prospective benefits of using materials other than DNA for the array-immobilized "probe" species, and of scaling down experiments to near nanoliter volumes. Next generation microarrays should aim to suppress biases from analyte folding, markedly shorten assay times, entirely obviate the need for enzymatic processing of samples, and work directly with unlabeled, minimally-processed analyte.