Abstract
Biochips, or digital labs-on-chip, are developed with the purpose of being used by laboratory technicians or biologists in laboratories or clinics. In this article, we expand this vision with the goal of enabling everyone, regardless of their expertise, to use biochips for their own personal purposes. We developed OpenDrop, an integrated electromicrofluidic platform that allows users to develop and program their own bio-applications. We address the main challenges that users may encounter: accessibility, bio-protocol design and interaction with microfluidics. OpenDrop consists of a do-it-yourself biochip, an automated software tool with visual interface and a detailed technique for at-home operations of microfluidics. We report on two years of use of OpenDrop, released as an open-source platform. Our platform attracted a highly diverse user base with participants originating from maker communities, academia and industry. Our findings show that 47% of attempts to replicate OpenDrop were successful, the main challenge remaining the assembly of the device. In terms of usability, the users managed to operate their platforms at home and are working on designing their own bio-applications. Our work provides a step towards a future in which everyone will be able to create microfluidic devices for their personal applications, thereby democratizing parts of health care.
Highlights
Microfluidics, the study and handling of small volumes of fluids, has the potential to revolutionize the laboratory research with immediate applications in medical care
OuWr eCboenltierivbeuotuiornwsork is a first step towards personal laboratories: small portable devices that people can oBwunildanindguasebtioocdheipvefloorppceursstoonmailzuedsebeion-cporuontotecroslsc,hsaimlleinlagretsoitnodtearym’sspoefr(sio)ncaolsct;o(miip) uactecress.sibility; 3a.nOd u(riiiC) oonpterirbabuitliiotyn.sIn this paper, we introduce OPENDROP, a platform that addresses all these challenges as follows
We present the experimental setup needed for microfluidics, emphasizing the difficulties that users encounter
Summary
Microfluidics, the study and handling of small volumes of fluids, has the potential to revolutionize the laboratory research with immediate applications in medical care (e.g., point-of-care diagnostics [1,2,3] and drug discovery [4,5,6]). Such applications on biological materials, typically including experimental procedures, recipes and data analyses, are commonly known as “bio-protocols”. Microfluidics can further benefit from automation and reconfigurability. Microfluidic research is typically conducted in one of the following directions: (i) building the microfluidic machines that reliably manipulate fluids [7,8,9,10,11,12,13]; (ii) designing new bio-protocols for microfluidics [1,2,3,4,5,6]; or (iii) developing automation algorithms for the execution of bio-protocols on the microfluidic machines [14,15,16,17,18]
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