Costa Francesco, Falzetti Luigi, Baldini Nicola, Avnet Sofia
BST Biomedical Science and Technologies Lab, IRCCS Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli, 40126 Bologna, Italy.
Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, 40127 Bologna, Italy.
Micromachines (Basel). 2020 Sep 19;11(9):872. doi: 10.3390/mi11090872.
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 CO 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.
微流控原理已被广泛应用30多年，以解决生物学和微机电问题。尽管有诸多优点，但微流控设备因其操作带来若干技术挑战而难以管理。我们开发了一种新型便携式工具——微流控训练器（MT），它可评估操作员的操作技能，并可用于维持或提高在体外细胞培养应用中向微流控设备入口注入液体的能力。经过多次测试，我们对MT测试单元进行了优化，以重现微流控设备的实际技术挑战。除了一条练习通道外，我们在入口处（控制通道）设置了一个过充指示器和一个正确填充指示器。我们使用60W CO激光绘图仪在一块3毫米厚的甲基丙烯酸酯薄板上雕刻，制造出多条毛细管通道，从而制成了MT。我们招募了21名志愿者（年龄中位数为33岁）来填充MT和一种商用微流控设备，以此对该设备进行验证。使用MT获得的成功率与商用微流控培养板的成功率显著相关，并且连续使用3次、每次30分钟可显著提高操作性能。总体而言，我们的数据表明，MT是评估个人使用微流控设备表现的有效工具，并且可能是一种低成本的培训、提高或热身微流控操作技能的解决方案。
