Technologies Overview

Stokes Bio has developed three families of technologies, which can be applied as enabling components to microfluidic systems or can be combined in concert to create whole systems. Its microfluidic platforms are designed to replace current well technology with high-throughput nano-litre droplets. All of the applications at present are focused upon quantitative PCR. The video below shows an animation of the Stokes system drawing from well plates and thermal cycling the resulting mix.

You are watching:

• Firstly the different primers being taken from a well plate.
• Each droplet then forming into a queue.

• The sample being mixed and delivered to the thermal cycler for detection.

Liquid Bridges

To the companies knowledge this technology is unique to Stokes Bio, they are used to partition a solution into droplets, to mix droplets together and to queue droplets containing different chemistries prior to introduction into the next serial device, such as the thermal cycler. The solution being manipulated can be the sample of interest or the assay reagents to be combined with the sample.

Microfluidic reaction queuing using liquid bridge junctions.

Liquid Bridges function by transferring a solution from the end of one capillary to the inlet of a second capillary. There are two immiscible liquids flowing into the receiving capillary, causing the aqueous solution to form an encapsulated droplet. Since the aqueous solution is encapsulated in an oil solution, there is no contact of it with the capillary wall and the capillary remains contamination free.

Liquid bridges can be arranged in series and parallel, such that multiple sample solutions can be arrayed with multiple gene assays of interest. The short video shows the formation of serial droplets, from multiple samples.