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Design software for application-specific microfluidic devices.

Microfluidics-based lab-on-a-chip systems, which feature miniaturization of biological separation and assay techniques, are rapidly transforming biochemical analysis and high-throughput screening. Microfluidic system design requires expertise in materials, chemistry, biology, and engineering, and understanding the complex interplay between variables that influence and limit system performance is difficult without computational assistance. Modeling approaches based on 3-dimensional numerical simulations provide detailed information regarding spatiotemporal variations of the field variables but are computationally very expensive for system-level analysis. Design-modeling tools are needed that rapidly simulate the complex underlying phenomena such as electroosmosis, electrophoresis, sample dispersion, mixing, and biochemical reactions without significantly compromising accuracy (1)(2)(3)(4)(5). In addition, these design tools must be easily usable by the microfluidic community, which comprises scientists and engineers from a variety of disciplines. To meet these challenges, we developed integrated design software that allows rapid layout of microfluidic channel networks, fast system performance simulation using a system solver, and the ability to easily reconfigure chip layout to meet specifications. We illustrate the application of the software to improve the design for an electrokinetic immunoassay chip.

The software design follows a modified form of the traditional client-server architecture. The user interacts with a graphical user interface (GUI) front-end (client). Fig. 1⇓ shows a screenshot of the GUI. The microfluidic lab-on-a-chip system is represented as a network of interconnected components that can be assembled from a component library. The sequence of operations required for the creation of the microfluidic network, analysis, and visualization of results using the GUI is as follows:

(1) Creation of the microfluidic network: The components (such as sample reservoirs, straight channels, bends, biosensors, and interconnects such as Y-, T-, and cross junctions) are selected from the component library and assembled into a network using a drag-and-drop method.

(2) Problem …