Microwell-seq
About 1 year after we stopped the Drop-seq project, we turn to develop another method, Microwell, for miRNA capture. This time, I collaborated with another master student, Zichao Huang, to design and test the device (I was majorly responsible for the design and computation). Our accordance is that, compared with Drop-seq, Microwell might allow us to save the enzymes (but several ml of buffer is still needed), where we can finish the ligation step in the agarose-made Microwell plate. We took a long time in testing the conditions. But we found that it was too hard to made high-quality beads with PCR. Well, if I can use the automatic microwells (not this one), maybe we can finish the design. In my mind, Microwell - the manual version - is not a good idea for single-cell studies. And agian, miRNA should be a tough topic for most of the labs.