Mobile Micro- and Nano-instruments
Monday, March 3, 2008
1:30 p.m., Room 267 

Organizer:

Vassili Karanassios, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

Speakers:

1:35      Mobile Instruments: Fast, Cheap and under Wireless Control  VASSILI KARANASSIOS, University of Waterloo

2:10      Totally Self-contained Gas Chromatograph-Toriodal Mass Spectrometer for field Application  MILTON L LEE, Brigham Young University, Jesse A Contreras, Jacolin A Murray, H. Dennis Tolley, Samuel E Tolley, Edgar D Lee, Stephen A Lammert, Douglas W Later

2:45      Life on a Chip: Integrating the Animate and Inanimate Worlds  JAMES CASTRACANE, CNSE-University at Albany

3:20      Miniaturized Mass Spectrometry  RICHARD SYMS, Imperial College London

3:55      Microfabricated Bioanalysis Systems for in situ Detection of Organic Biomarkers on Mars  THOMAS N CHIESL, University of California, Berkeley, Amanda Stockton, Alison M Skelley, James R Scherer, Richard A Mathies

Overview:

There is a clear trend toward miniaturization of analytical instrumentation.  On the scientific and technical fronts, miniaturization is receiving significant attention in the form of micro- and nano-science and -technology.  On the sample-size front, there is an undeniable trend toward growing use of micro- or nano-size analytical samples. On the commercial front, there are manufacturers either producing miniaturized instruments or utilizing in their products micro- or nano-size materials, modules or components.  
Making instruments “mobile” enables their use outside of a laboratory (e.g., on-site or in the field, where they are needed the most).  Applications of mobile analytical instruments that are smaller, cheaper, faster and smarter than their large-size counterparts abound in environmental monitoring, in health nanodiagnostics (e.g., nano-barcodes and micro-instrument barcode readers) and other on-chip bio and health-related applications (e.g., pill-size spectrometers), in space exploration, in narcotics detection and in homeland security (to name just a few).  Furthermore, taking advantage of scaling laws, micro- and nano-instruments can often be made to have improved figures-of-merit as compared to their conventional-size counterparts that are typically anchored to a lab and tethered to a wall power-outlet.  Clearly, battery-operated mobile instruments that are small, cheap, fast, smart and under wireless control are poised to cause a paradigm shift in classical chemical analysis (in which samples are brought to the lab) by allowing practitioners to bring the lab to the sample.
This symposium is designed to give attendees an overview of recent successes in miniaturization of analytical instrumentation, to describe continuing efforts in laboratories around the world toward making instruments “mobile”, to highlight remaining barriers and to offer suggestions on how to overcome them.