Manufacturing method and readout system for biopolymer arrays

A sensor array device comprising:

• a plurality of individually addressable deformable membrane elements having resonant frequencies that change when mass is added to or removed from the membrane in each sensor,
• a readout system that detects changes in the resonant frequency of at least one membrane element in the array, and
• a signal-processing system for determining, from detected changes in resonance frequency, the presence of a change in mass of said system.

An optically-addressed hybridization array sensor comprising:

• an array of vibratory elements having a substantially rigid cavity covered by a flexible membrane, said membrane bearing an electrically conductive layer and a probe species layer, and the bottom of said rigid cavity bearing a photo controlled conductive element and electrical contacts attached to an electrical signal source, such that illumination of said conductive element controls an electrical voltage between the bottom or sides of the cavity and the electrically conductive layer of the membrane, and such that the membrane is deflected by an electrostatic force controlled by the electrical voltage;
• and
• an optical addressing system that directs illumination to selected elements of the array at selected modulation frequencies, and a system to detect the response of the drum-like structures to the selected frequencies and infer any change in an amount of target species hybridized to said probe species.

An optical read-out system for a hybridization array sensor of the type having an array of deflectable membrane modulators, the resonant frequency of each membrane modulator controlled by hybridization of a target species to a probe species on the membrane of the membrane modulator, said system comprising

• a signal source and driver to drive the entire array of modulators at a series of selected frequencies,
• an optical phase detection system to measure phase differences between the signal source and the deflection of the modulators at the selected frequencies, and
• an information processing system to relate the phase differences to changes in the hybridization state of the membrane modulator.

A system for producing chemical arrays on a roll-to-roll basis comprising:

• a plurality of exposure modules each comprising a variable masking system, a light source and imaging optics to image a line of pixels from a variable mask to a line on a surface,
• a plurality of photochemical modules to bring reactants of a photo controllable chemistry in contact with a substrate bearing reaction loci, such that at each photochemical module is associated with at least one exposure module such that the variable masking system of the exposure module controls illumination of a line of reaction loci on the substrate and thereby controls the photo-controllable chemistry in a spatial pattern of loci according to the variable masking system, such that the plurality of photochemical modules and their associated exposure modules effect an individually predetermined sequence of photo-controlled reactions at each locus on the substrate.

A roll-to-roll DNA array manufacturing system comprising a web handling system to move a substrate in the form of a flexible web through a series of groups of four photochemical reactors, each of said photochemical reactors comprising a source of photo-controlled chemistry and an exposure module such that reactive molecules on the substrate are brought into contact with each of four nucleic acids A, G, C, T, in a predetermined order and the exposure module controls the illumination of the substrate at each of a plurality of loci in a line on the substrate substantially perpendicular to the direction of web motion and on the substrate in a predetermined spatial pattern.

A sensor device comprising

• a substrate having a plurality of array regions,
• attached to each array region, an anchoring nucleic acid covalently attached to each region, said anchoring nucleic acid having a common base sequence, and
• hybridized to the anchoring nucleic acid in each region, a nucleic acid probe having a first common-sequence region that is complementary to at least a portion of the anchoring nucleic acid, and a second probe region having a nucleic acid sequence that is different in the different regions.