High-throughput growth phenotyping draws a great attention for establishing the genotype-phenotype map of organism. A multiplex nanoliter bioreactor array was developed with the capability of simultaneously monitoring the phenotypic responses of microbial cells to different culture conditions. This system is highly potential for screening a multitude of metabolites, peptides, and proteins in drug-screening processes.

- J. Dai et al., Charatering microbial phenotypes in multiplex nanoliter batch bioreactors, Analytical Chemistry, 85. 5892-5899 (2013)

The establishment of dose-response relationship is an important step in pharmaceutical drug discovery. Current existing assay systems for evaluating the dose-response of microbial cells to antimicrobial drugs suffer from several limitations including excess reagent consumption and inaccurate concentration gradient preparation. We introduced an integrated microfluidic bioreactor array that can generate a logarithmic antibiotic concentration gradient and allow monitoring bacterial growth in nanoliter batch culture reactors. The obtained EC₅₀ values are comparable to those determined from conventional tube cultures. This system can be further applied to study the combinatorial effects of antibiotics on multidrug resistant pathogenic bacteria.

- J. Dai, et al., A microfluidic chip based growth phenotype assay for antibiotic EC₅₀ determination, Biotechnology Journal, 10, 1783-1791 (2015)