Dr. Jason Kralj

Multiplexed biomolecular analysis has emerged as a critical area of need to the biological sciences community. To that end, we are employing a combination of new technologies, such as microfluidics, and working with other government and industrial partners to create cutting-edge measurement and sample preparation techniques for nucleic acid analysis.

In particular, messenger RNA isolation and amplification from small samples has been a key focus. Current work exploits a combination of functionalized microbeads with active microfluidic devices to generate small columns that localize the sample for improved efficiency of subsequent enzymatic processing.

In collaboration with Dr. David Ross, we have also developed multiplexed electrophoretic analysis techniques that allow us to perform analyses and separations of "dirty" samples (containing mixtures of proteins and other molecules that would contaminate the analysis). The main advantage of this work is that detection is electrical, not optical, allowing massive parallelization and potentially low cost-per-use assays on inexpensive equipment.