This is a result of a research project that began some years ago to look at nanoimprint technology for the manufacture of chips with nanochannels a few tens of nanometres deep and wide. After manufacturing the nanochannels, the process was completed by oxidation of the silicon and sealing by anodic bonding. The excellent images, obtained by scanning electron microscope (one of the few of its type in the world), show that the series of processes have not caused the nanochannels to collapse, leaving them fully operational and with a size estimated at 100 nm.

After mastering the manufacturing process, the TEKNIKER researchers undertook a set of successful experiments to show the viability of these devices for measuring the length of DNA from a single molecule. DNA with a known number of base pairs and length, stained with fluorescent molecules was used to monitor their movements. The DNA was suspended in an electrolyte and submitted to a pressure difference, stretched - with an experimentally identified stretching factor of 0.33 - and moved through the nanochannels with identifiable dimensions that were compatible with the theoretical forecasts (it was also possible to empirically estimate the size of the nanochannels, coinciding with the qualitative appraisal of the SEM images). An excellent video has been obtained by the TEKNIKER researchers, using highly sensitive cameras from the Technical University of Denmark, which highlights said movement and the standard size of the molecules in movement.

This line of research is ultimately designed to ensure reliable and economic coding and identification of the genome (for rapid detection of viruses, bacteria and other pathogenic organisms) and began at the University of Princeton (U.S.A.), with less than half a dozen research groups in the world that are currently up to date with the state of the art (including TEKNIKER). This analytic method, which only needs a single sample macromolecule, has unquestionable advantages over current procedures for DNA analysis and sequencing, which requires the double strand to be cut into many small fragments, each segment to be replicated millions of times, classified by size and the original sequence reconstructed... All very time consuming and expensive.

The research results have appeared in the article entitled "Single molecule DNA stretching in nanofluidic chips fabricated by thermal imprinting and anodic bonding", the work of our researchers Estefanía Abad, Aritz Juarros, Aritz Retolaza and Santos Merino, together with the Danish scientists Marie and Kristensen. The results have been sent to the prestigious indexed publication "Nanotechnology". For more information, contact eabad@tekniker.es or ajuarros@tekniker.es.

This important success identifies TEKNIKER as one of the few centres working on real "nanotechnology" as it was originally understood: restricted to functional elements of nanometric size in at least two dimensions. It confirms the positioning of TEKNIKER in the nanotechnological aspects of the coordination of the European FOREMOST project (which uses nanoparticle coatings for tribological purposes), the technological leadership of the project carried out by the NANOCIT consortium of Spanish technological centres and participation in the Basque Etortek of the NANOGUNE CIC.

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