Microfluidics on Standard Petri Dishes for Bioscientists

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Microfluidics
• Cell Biology

Background:

• Traditional microfluidic devices face adoption barriers in biomedical labs due to non-cell-friendly materials and inaccessible liquid confinement.
• Existing microfluidic systems often lack user-friendliness for routine biological applications.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present an open microfluidic approach using fluid shaping for easy fabrication of cell-friendly microfluidic devices.
• To enable accessible and affordable microfluidic technology for bioscientists.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of 2D aqueous circuits in minutes on polystyrene Petri dishes by reshaping cell-culture media and immiscible fluorocarbon (FC40).
• Confining aqueous phases using fluid FC40 walls, which can be pierced for liquid manipulation.
• Driving flows actively with pumps or passively via Laplace pressure differences.

Main Results:

• Demonstration of robust, transparent, and gas-permeable fluidic walls suitable for cell culture in incubators.
• Cells grown and monitored microscopically within the open microfluidic system using standard laboratory procedures.
• Successful manipulation of liquids through pierced fluidic walls.

Conclusions:

• The developed fluid-shaping technology offers a simple, accessible, and affordable method for creating open microfluidic devices.
• This approach lowers the barrier for bioscientists to integrate microfluidics into their research.
• The system supports standard cell culture and microscopy, facilitating wider adoption of microfluidic tools in biology.