  The objective of this project is to develop an automated device used to spot
protein samples on a hydrophobic membrane to be used for the patented
electrophoresis method developed by Chang and Yonan in 2008 [1]. This novel
method performs electrophoresis directly on hydrophobic blot membranes as
opposed to the previous popular methods such as the 2-D polyacrylamide gel
method [2, 3]. This new electrophoresis method significantly reduces the
processing time to about 40 minutes, as opposed to the 2-D PAGE method which
can take one or two days. Special methods to spot samples on hydrophobic blot
membranes were established for successful separation of protein and protein
complexes. These spotting methods are used in conjunction with the patented
electrophoresis method [1] for effective separation. The automated device
effectively replicates these special methods that are repeatable and user
independent. The goal of the automated device is to effectively spot and
separate protein complexes in addition to single proteins under non-denaturing
conditions, thus eliminating the variability of the manual spotting method.
