Micro Total Analysis Systems. 1. Introduction, Theory, and Technology

Darwin R. Reyes is a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at Imperial College, London, U.K. He received his B.S. in chemistry from the University of Puerto Rico, and after working for two years in SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceutical (Cidra, P.R.), he undertook his Ph.D. studies with Professor Osvaldo Rosario at the University of Puerto Rico. His thesis involved the chemical characterization of airborne particulate matter directed by cell-based toxicological bioassays. He has been working with Professor Manz since 2000 developing isoelectric focusing and other separation modes in microfluidic devices in order to develop two-dimensional separation systems on chip.

Dimitri Iossifidis received his B.Sc. in chemistry from Reading University in 1999 and his M.Sc. from Imperial College in 2000. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at Imperial College under the supervision of Professor Andreas Manz. His research interests lie in the field of miniaturized biochemical analysis systems and the application of such systems to clinical diagnostics.

Pierre-Alain Auroux studied in Strasbourg, France, at the European School of Chemistry, Polymers and Functional Materials (ECPM), where he got his M.Sc. in 2000. As part of his degree work, he spent fourteen months at Orion Research, Inc. (Beverly, MA), where he helped develop electrochemical devices for Mars soil analysis. He also went to Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos, NM) for four months and elaborated a protocol for capillary electrophoresis analysis of dyes, interfaced with Raman spectroscopy. After graduating, he spent a year and a half in Professor Manz‘s group familiarizing himself-with microscale-fabrication techniques. He is currently at the Children‘s Hospital of Zurich (Zurich, Switzerland) working on his Ph.D.

Andreas Manz obtained his Ph.D. from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, Switzerland, with Professor W. Simon. His thesis dealt with the use of microelectrodes as detectors for picoliter-size volumes. He spent one year at Hitachi Central Research Lab in Tokyo, Japan, as a postdoctoral fellow and produced a liquid chromatography column on a chip. At Ciba-Geigy, Basel, Switzerland, he developed the concept of Miniaturized Total Analysis Systems (μTAS) and built up a research team on chip-based analytical instrumentation during 1988−1995. Since joining Imperial College, he has become the SmithKline Beecham Professor for Analytical Chemistry. His research interests include fluid handling and detection principles for chemical analysis, bioassays, and synthesis using microfabricated devices.