US Patent 8993348 Exchangeable carriers pre-loaded with reagent depots for digital microfluidics

The present invention provides exchangeable, reagent pre-loaded carriers (10), preferably in the form of plastic sheets, which can be temporarily applied to an electrode array (16) on a digital microfluidic (DMF) device (14). The carrier (10) facilitates virtually un-limited re-use of the DMF devices (14) avoiding cross-contamination on the electrode array (16) itself, as well as enabling rapid exchange of pre-loaded reagents (12) while bridging the world-to-chip interface of DMF devices (14). The present invention allows for the transformation of DMF into a versatile platform for lab-on-a-chip applications.