Prospects for Multiparameter Assays

Besides the microfluidic assay that was described in Section 3.1 of this chapter, we would like to discuss another example out of many others, where we feel that this strategy of nesting different approaches for miniaturization and parallelization in a clever way will lead or has led to substantial improvements. 

Parallel production of many beads of one type. Although the beads are the miniaturized entities of the system, their bulk processing does not require miniaturization. 

Self-assembly of beads into cavities. All cavities are the same and their generation is a parallel, well-established microfabrication process. No miniaturized placement of individual beads to particular positions is necessary. 

Generation of an address list to identify each bead in the randomly assembled array in parallel with only a few hybridizations and combinatorial decoding of the addresses. 

Arrangement of arrays in an 8 X 12 matrix. This format allows parallel processing with standard lab equipment without miniaturization (96-well plates are not considered miniaturized). 

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