Introduction DNA microarrays have proven to be invaluable tools in both clinical and research settings for gene expression analysis, genotyping and to identify mutants in cell populations or tissue samples because they enable highly parallel analysis of thousands of individual DNA sequences [Heller 2002]. Each microarray can contain tens of thousands of unique probes per cm2 which are used to characterize biological samples in a multiplexed manner. In a typical assay, biological targets are isolated, tagged with a fl uorescent dye and then introduced to the probes on the microarray surface where hybridization reactions occur between complimentary probes and targets. After the hybridization reactions are complete, microarrays are generally read in a laser-based fl uorescent scanner to identify and quantify the number of probe – target duplexes.