title: Low-volume filling of microplate wells using vibration.
abstract: Smaller fluid samples can offer higher sensitivity under analysis and allow more samples from a sparse specimen. However, for a microplate well there is a minimum volume requirement arising from the need for the fluid/air interface to make contact only on the walls of the well, a condition which allows high-quality undistorted optical imaging due to the minimum curvature of this interface. In this work, mechanical vibration is investigated as a method to significantly decrease this minimum volume requirement. Furthermore, low-frequency excitation is shown to be ideal for handling multiple wells (such as in a microplate) simultaneously.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Monash University, VIC, Australia.
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chong
authors.forename: James David
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Whitehill
authors.forename: Adrian
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Neild
mesh_terms: D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay / Q000379:methods*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014732:Vibration