Microfluidic chip with temporal and spatial concentration generation capabilities for biological applications

This paper details the control and operation of a new microfluidic chip whose architecture of three sets of five fluidic channels is capable of generating both spatially and temporally varying concentration gradients. It is housed in a Petri dish where the cells are first seeded and preconditioned and then exposed to the biochemical gradients produced by the chip. The flow in the fluidic channels is regulated by crisscrossing control channels with the contact interfaces acting as valves. The pneumatic control and operation of the chip have been automated with LABVIEW and thoroughly tested. The results for the single channel case have also been validated by a comprehensive computational model whose formulation is described. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.