MAGNETIC – BASED MICROFLUIDIC PLATFORM FOR BIOMOLECULAR SEPARATION
A. AVRAM, M. AVRAM, M. VOLMER, D. P. POENAR, C. ILIESCU

Abstract. The motivation of the research work is to realize a spin valve array for manipulating, sorting and testing biomolecules. The spin valve arrays allow the application of torsion forces to a large number of individual biomolecules simultaneously. A novel microfluidic platform for manipulation of micro/nano magnetic particles was designed, fabricated and tested for applications dealing with biomolecular separation. At the present moment we are studying of the interaction of the magnetic particles used in biological applications with the GMR sensor. The fractional change in resistance, and hence the sensitivity, will be maximized by matching, as far as possible, the size of the sensor to the size of the beads and by carefully positioning the beads over the sensor. We found, by micromagnetic simulations, that the amount of surface coverage with magnetic particles may affect the magnetization curve of the sensor and will change the field dependence of his GMR response.