Monolithic sol-gel microchip device for efficient isolation of nucleic acid from clinical samples

The feasibility of using monolithic sol-gels for micro-solid phase extraction ({micro}SPE) of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in a microchip format is explored in this work. The monolithic sol-gel bed in a microchip allows efficient DNA purification and extraction with back pressures that are significantly lower than a particle-packed extraction bed. The applicability of the developed {micro}SPE DNA extraction protocol to clinical samples, for example blood and serum, is successfully demonstrated.