Compact discs have been proposed as an efficient analytical platform, with potential to develop high-throughput affinity assays for genomics, proteomics, clinics, and health monitoring. Chemical derivatization of CD surfaces is one of the keys to developing highly efficient microarraying-based assays on discs. Approaches for mild chemical modification of polycarbonate (PC) disc surface based on nitration, reduction, and chloromethylation reactions have been developed. Derivatized surfaces as amino and thiol are obtained for PC, maintaining unchanged the mechanical and optical properties of the discs. Studies of covalent attachment of oligonucleotide probes (5' Cy5-labeled, 3' NH 2-ended) on the modified surfaces have been performed to develop microarraying assays based on hybridization of cDNA strands and single nucleotide polymorphism discrimination (SNPs). A demonstration of the applicability to the compact disc audio/video technology for its use as analytical system is performed, including the employment of a commercial CD player to read the results on disc.