Versatile micro-mixing system with chemical and biological applications

摘要

The present invention provides microfluidic technology for mixing discrete volumes of chemical and biological solutions and suspensions in an accurate, versatile and predetermined manner. In particular, the method of mixing solutions in a microfluidic system comprises: a) moving a carrier solution 8 which is immiscible with the chemical solutions 9 to be mixed in a conduit 1; b) loading chemical solutions into reservoirs; c) operating a device 6 to move a known volume of a first chemical solution through a first opening into the conduit; d) where required, operating a metering mechanism 2 to move the carrier fluid to move the volume of first solution to a position near a second opening; e) operating a second device to dispense a known volume of a second solution into the conduit causing it to coalesce 10 with the first solution droplet; f) repeating steps d) and e) until all the desired solutions have been mixed together; g) operating the metering mechanism to move the carrier fluid, thereby moving the mixture away from the openings. A method of priming and calibrating the device is also provided. The apparatus may further have a sipper device which is able to pick up a plurality of samples by dipping into them in sequence. The apparatus may be particularly useful for crystallisation operations, e.g. protein crystallization.