Electrokinetic mixing in electrode-embedded multiwell plates to improve the diffusion limited kinetics of biosensing platforms.

Rapid and accurate biosensing with low concentrations of the analytes is usually challenged by the diffusion limited reaction kinetics. Thus, as a remedy, long incubation times or excess amounts of the reagents are employed to ensure the reactions to go to completion. Therefore, mixing becomes both a serious problem and necessity to overcome that diffusion limitation and homogenize the samples, especially for the biochemical reactions that take place in multiwell plates.

Electrokinetic Mixing for Improving the Kinetics of an HbA1c Immunoassay.

The efficiency of the diagnostic platforms utilizing ELISA technique or immunoassays depends highly on incubation times of the recognition elements or signaling molecules and volume of the patient samples. In conventional immunoassays, long incubation times and excess amounts of the recognition and signaling molecules are used. The technology proposed here uses electrokinetic mixing of the reagents involved in a sandwich immunoassay based diagnostic assay in electrode-enabled microwell plates in such a way that the incubation times and volumes can be reduced substantially.