Dec. 7, 2006 — BIOIDENT Technologies Inc., a Menlo Park, Calif., company developing printed opto-electronic solutions for life sciences, announced a lab-on-a-chip prototype with a fully integrated opto-electronic readout system.

By leveraging printed organic photonics, BIOIDENT says it has delivered a nanotiter plate prototype that can conduct multiple tests in parallel on a single chip. The company’s PhotonicLab Platform is intended to enable cost-effective disposable lab-on-a-chip solutions that eliminate the need for expensive, bulky readout systems and provide immediate test results with significant cost savings.

The prototype consists of a 1 x 3-inch nanotiter plate — a type of lab-on-a-chip device with multiple wells that can hold testing agents to perform laboratory functions. With BIOIDENT, the nanotiter plate includes an integrated photodetector array based on printed semiconductor technology with a single pixel under each well.

The array converts light into electrical signals, enabling analysis on multiple agents simultaneously and in real-time.

The company says its printing process can be used on other lab-on-a-chip systems, including microfluidics, opening up new opportunities and applications for real-time analysis of chemical and biological substances.

To build the prototype, BIOIDENT used what it calls its PhotonicLab Platform — which uses organic semiconductor based technology to print light emitting and detecting capabilities directly on to any surface, including glass, enabling on-chip analysis and diagnostics. In addition, the company uses established testing protocols to deliver real-time and in-situ multi-parameter detection capabilities for all categories of chemical and biological analytes. The nanotiter plate for the prototype was provided by Microfluidic ChipShop GmbH in Jena, Germany.