Re: [DIYbio] Re: At home fabrication of micron scale microfluidics

On Sunday, March 1, 2015 at 2:54:32 PM UTC-5, Jonathan Cline wrote:

 

I believe there is a better way to approach your marketing survey.  Find a protocol that needs to be done DIY.  Then create a microfluidics solution which fits that protocol.  Repeat with three different protocols.  Then you have something interesting.  For example, Genomikon is a kit using very good DIY synbio protocol.  Now just make a microfluidics version.  This solves multiple problems.  The reagents are expensive, and microfluidics allows this cost to be significantly reduced per experiment run, by reducing the volume of liquid used.  The microfluidics version would also remove human error in liquid handling, reducing waste (thus also total cost per experiment) and schedule delay.

The most important feature of your product however is very simply going to be better yields.


## Jonathan Cline
## jcl...@ieee.org
## Mobile: +1-805-617-0223
########################

Thanks, I'll look into building around a few key protocols. 

We're doing work with a 3D printer to lay down features and cast PDMS over them. Right now you can design a device in CAD software, but then you can't control how the slicer software breaks up the print. We got a lot of channels not connecting because the print head will start and stop in the middle of a channel. The software we're making uses a list of features that the user can choose and combine in any pattern to make a chip. It writes a gcode file that can be sent to the printer. Once printed PDMS can be cast over the features and cured with the heated print bed. With the 3D printer we also have the ability to write channels in 3D and overlap channels. I attached a few photos of a chip we did to show this.

Once the gcode file is written the chip can be rewritten in less than a minute. This could theoretically work with any other casting material.

On the topic of lego type devices. We could make larger sets that can be connected in the software and printed as a single device. This would eliminate the risk of leaking between devices and such.

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