The Microarrays & Biochip Technology group develops structured surfaces in the dimension of µm for adsorptive and covalent coupling of biochemical components. Additionally we work on custom-made microarray applications. Various application-specific dispensing technologies are used: Contact-free methods like ink-jet, semi-contact techniques like silica capillary printing and contact-mode methods, i. e. pin-tools, are used to print spots of different sizes and distances on surfaces. Different immobilization methods, both covalent and adsorptive, are available. The detection of the resulting patterns is done photometrically or by fluorescence labelling. The service we offer combines the production of custom-made DNA- and protein-chips, different prepared surfaces enabling the coupling of a various amount of binders and surfaces presenting a varying number of chemical and biochemical functions. Some examples for these applications are:

• construction of biochips for highly parallel analysis of biomolecular interactions, with the current focus being the production of custom-made DNA-chips for experimental use.
• A biosensor method was developed enabling the label-free detection of hormones in whole-blood with extremely low unspecific binding of blood components.