3D Printing, Ink Casting and Micromachined Lamination (3D PICLM): A Makerspace Approach to the Fabrication of Biological Microdevices

We present a novel benchtop-based microfabrication technology: 3D printing, ink casting, micromachined lamination (3D PICLM) for rapid prototyping of lab-on-a-chip (LOC) and biological devices. The technology uses cost-effective, makerspace-type microfabrication processes, all of which are ideally suited for low resource settings, and utilizing a combination of these processes, we have demonstrated the following devices: (i) 2D microelectrode array (MEA) targeted at in vitro neural and cardiac electrophysiology, (ii) microneedle array targeted at drug delivery through a transdermal route and (iii) multi-layer microfluidic chip targeted at multiplexed assays for in vitro applications. The 3D printing process has been optimized for printing angle, temperature of the curing process and solvent polishing to address various biofunctional considerations of the three demonstrated devices. We have depicted that the 3D PICLM process has the capability to fabricate 30 m sized MEAs (average 1 kHz impedance of 140 k with a double layer capacitance of 3 F), robust and reliable microneedles having 30 m radius of curvature and similar to 40 N mechanical fracture strength and microfluidic devices having 150 m wide channels and 400 m fluidic vias capable of fluid mixing and transmitted light microparticle visualization. We believe our 3D PICLM is ideally suited for applications in areas such as electrophysiology, drug delivery, disease in a dish, organ on a chip, environmental monitoring, agricultural therapeutic delivery and genomic testing.