Joe Childs, a Cambridge high school physics teacher has found an easy way to create a microfluidic chip. Dr. Anas Chalah, a Harvard University researcher, has used this inexpensive and simple method in his recently developed Microfluidics Lab for undergraduates. The technology here is not new at all, but the method is. Conventional microfluidic devices are created using high-resolution photolithography and etching. The problem is that this process costs around $500 each time it is performed, making it too costly to offer to all students. Childs and Harvard graduate student Keith Brown used a traditional photocopier, transparency films, and a few other simple items to create lab-on-a-chip devices. These devices are similar to those used in drug testing. They are used to deliver specific drug concentrations to multiple experimental cell lines built into one chip. Multiple lines means as many as 80 experiments can be performed at once. To make their own similar devices, Childs and Brown designed the channels on PowerPoint, printed the image and photocopied it onto transparency film repeatedly until the ink created heightened ridges. They were able to create a negative mold that is capable of making channels in the polymer chip. The chips made with this new method are not as precise as commercially made chips, but they are expected to appeal to biomedical engineering students and premedical students as well as universities. Chalah and Childs have been working together to perfect the method and the devices. For more information please visit: http://www.seas.harvard.edu/news-events/press-releases/microfluidics-lab
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