FORNANO

BAVARIAN RESEARCH ASSOCIATION FOR MINIATURISED ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES USING NANOTECHNOLOGY

FORNANO

The association

In the fields of medicine, diagnostics as well as pharmaceutics, chemical process technology and environmental analysis, fast quantitative detection of chemical and biological substances is essential. The scientists in the ForNano research cooperation are developing components for analytical laboratories which will fit on a thumbnail sized chip. These microchips would allow laboratory analysis while only requiring a minute quantity of sample and reagent. This would greatly reduce the use of reagents which not only cut costs, but also provides more environmentally friendly solutions. In addition, thanks to the shorter reaction times, the microchip lab would deliver the analysis results faster than conventional tests. Nanotechnology methods form the basis for the new developments. ForNano is actively researching new methods of analysis that are capable of detecting substances with a high degree of sensitivity using even the tiniest quantities of liquid. Alongside the analytical techniques, chips are being developed on which liquids can be moved or living cells examined. The idea is for numerous processes to take place in parallel on the chip. To this end, researchers are working on methods for analysing and detecting numerous samples simultaneously in a single sample. In ForNano, scientists from the fields of physics, chemistry and medicine work together with partners from industry.

Information

Launching date

01.2002

End

12.2004