2004: My first attempt to reconstitute planar lipid bilayer in a microchip!
“Planar lipid bilayer reconstitution with micro fluidic system”
published in H. Suzuki, K. Tabata, Y. Kato-Yamada, H. Noji, S. Takeuchi, Lab Chip, 4, 502-505, 2004.
This is my first publication for making planar lipid bilayer using a microfluidic chip. It was beginning of the Lab on a Chip journal. Good old days.
A planar lipid bilayer which is widely used for the electrophysiological study of membrane proteins in laboratories is reconstituted using a micro-fluidic system, in a manner that is suitable for automated processing. We fabricated micro-channels on both sides of the substrate, which are connected through a 100–200 μm aperture, and showed that the bilayer can be formed at the aperture by flowing the lipid solution and buffer, alternately. Parylene coating is found to be suitable for both bilayer formation and electric noise reduction. Future applications include a high-sensitivity ion sensor chip and a high-throughput drug screening device.
