A bio-chip arrayer system has been developed indigenously for producing bio-chips. The bio-chips are based on use of track etched membranes (TEM) as a novel solid support. TEM are extremely thin (10 micron) and highly microporous membranes. We have tested polycarbonate (PC) TEM by manual spotting of antibodies for the development of the antibody bio-chip for simultaneous estimation of the thyroid related hormones in sera of patients with thyroid disorders. However, manual spotting is a labor-intensive and error prone process. The arrayer has been developed using piezoelectric based pin head for non contact spotting of solution on the porous TEM. This is a computer controlled three axes robotic arm to automate and streamline different processes. It precisely and accurately dispenses few picolitre to nanolitre solution resulting in excellent spot reproducibility and gives uniform spot morphology. It uses real time pressure control and excellent circuit for voltage and pulse width for piezo-dispenser. It has been developed according to the flexible industry standard (25 × 75 mm) glass slide microarray format and can be used with any 3-D (membranes or gel pads) or 2-D (glass) substrates. Real time machine vision system has also been developed to monitor the dispenser performance. The system has been modeled using the neural networks to dispense the different viscous samples to maintain the same spot size. This system includes user friendly control software to define all critical parameters for printing operation. The performance, accuracy and repeatability of the system are evaluated by printing test patterns and quantifying various spot parameters using statistical methods.
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