3-D printing has received popularity in recent times as a mode for generating a range of operational goods, from clothing to tools and medical gadgets. Now, the idea of multi-dimensional printing has assisted a group of scientists at the ASRC (Advanced Science Research Center) of the City University at the Graduate Center of New York design a new and possibly more cost-effective and efficient technique for making biochips (also dubbed as microarrays), which are employed to analyze and screen biological alterations related with development of bioterrorism agents, disease, and other regions of examination that comprise biological elements.

In a paper posted this week in the Chem journal, scientists with the Nanoscience Initiative of ASRC claimed how they have mixed microfluidic methods with photochemical surface reactions and beam-pen lithography to invent a fresh biochip printing method. The technique comprises uncovering surface of a biochip to particular organic reagents, and then employing a firmly focused light beam to hold on the immobilized reagents to the surface of the chip. The procedure permits researchers to frequently expose a sole chip to the different or same factors and mark the reactions onto various segments of the biochip. The outcome is a biochip that can have room for more probes than is attainable with present commercial methods.

“This is fundamentally a fresh nano scale printer that permits us to mark more difficulty on the biochip’s surface than any of the presently accessible commercial methods,” claimed associate professor with the Nanoscience Initiative of ASRC and lead researcher, Adam Braunschweig, to the media in an interview. “It will assist us to get much improved understanding of how biological pathways and cells work.”

An extra advantage of the new method is that it permits researchers to dependably print on a rage of delicate materials comprising metals, glasses, and lipids.