Abstract
Microfluidic principles have been widely applied for more than 30 years to solve biological and micro-electromechanical problems. Despite the numerous advantages, microfluidic devices are difficult to manage as their handling comes with several technical challenges. We developed a new portable tool, the microfluidic trainer (MT), that assesses the operator handling skills and that may be used for maintaining or improving the ability to inject fluid in the inlet of microfluidic devices for in vitro cell culture applications. After several tests, we optimized the MT tester cell to reproduce the real technical challenges of a microfluidic device. In addition to an exercise path, we included an overfilling indicator and a correct infilling indicator at the inlet (control path). We manufactured the MT by engraving a 3 mm-high sheet of methacrylate with 60W CO2 laser plotter to create multiple capillary paths. We validated the device by enrolling 21 volunteers (median age 33) to fill both the MT and a commercial microfluidic device. The success rate obtained with MT significantly correlated with those of a commercial microfluidic culture plate, and its 30 min-continuous use for three times significantly improved the performance. Overall, our data demonstrate that MT is a valid assessment tool of individual performances in using microfluidic devices and may represent a low-cost solution to training, improve or warm up microfluidic handling skills.
Highlights
Microfluidics is the science of systems that process and manipulate small quantities of fluids through channels of a few hundred micrometres, in which capillarity phenomena dominate the dynamics of fluids
After completing the validation protocol, in addition to measuring the indexed performances obtained with the microfluidic trainer (MT) device and with the commercial microfluidic plate, for each volunteer enrolled in the Pilot study 1, we collected and analysed all information regarding the type of degree, the previous experience that could have improved the manual skills in handling microfluidic supports, and that could be correlated to the level of experience, as measured by the MT device (Table 1)
The first devices were developed by the semiconductor industry and later incorporated into micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS)
Summary
Microfluidics is the science of systems that process and manipulate small quantities of fluids through channels of a few hundred micrometres, in which capillarity phenomena dominate the dynamics of fluids This feature has led to the development of devices that can control fluid manipulation in a remarkably precise way in many different contexts, like semiconductor industries and in the micro-electromechanical field [1]. Microfluidic devices can simulate the functional units of a tissue or an organ on a small surface (organ-on-a-chip) or can replace and integrate many functions of a lab (lab-on-a-chip). This proved to be advantageous both in basic research and in the diagnostic field. Many microfluidic devices have been designed and introduced into the market for biomedical applications, like DNA sequencing, functional genomics, single-cell studies [2], cell-to-cell investigation [3], and in several specialized biomedical sectors, like neural tissue engineering [4] and cancer investigation [5], including bone metastasis [6], drug discovery and screening [7], and diagnostics [8]
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