PDMS Organ-On-Chip Design and Fabrication: Strategies for Improving Fluidic Integration and Chip Robustness of Rapidly Prototyped Microfluidic In Vitro Models

Tiffany C Cameron; Avineet Randhawa; Samantha M Grist; Tanya Bennet; Jessica Hua; Luis G Alde; Tara M Caffrey; Cheryl L Wellington; Karen C Cheung

doi:10.3390/mi13101573

PDMS Organ-On-Chip Design and Fabrication: Strategies for Improving Fluidic Integration and Chip Robustness of Rapidly Prototyped Microfluidic In Vitro Models

Micromachines (Basel). 2022 Sep 22;13(10):1573. doi: 10.3390/mi13101573.

Authors

Tiffany C Cameron^{1

2}, Avineet Randhawa^{1

2}, Samantha M Grist^{1

2

3}, Tanya Bennet^{1

2}, Jessica Hua^{1

2}, Luis G Alde^{2

4}, Tara M Caffrey^{1

2}, Cheryl L Wellington^{5

6}, Karen C Cheung^{1

2

7}

Affiliations

¹ School of Biomedical Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z3, Canada.
² Centre for Blood Research, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z3, Canada.
³ Dream Photonics Inc., Vancouver, BC V6T 0A7, Canada.
⁴ Department of Chemistry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1, Canada.
⁵ Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 2B5, Canada.
⁶ Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z3, Canada.
⁷ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada.

Abstract

The PDMS-based microfluidic organ-on-chip platform represents an exciting paradigm that has enjoyed a rapid rise in popularity and adoption. A particularly promising element of this platform is its amenability to rapid manufacturing strategies, which can enable quick adaptations through iterative prototyping. These strategies, however, come with challenges; fluid flow, for example, a core principle of organs-on-chip and the physiology they aim to model, necessitates robust, leak-free channels for potentially long (multi-week) culture durations. In this report, we describe microfluidic chip fabrication methods and strategies that are aimed at overcoming these difficulties; we employ a subset of these strategies to a blood-brain-barrier-on-chip, with others applied to a small-airway-on-chip. Design approaches are detailed with considerations presented for readers. Results pertaining to fabrication parameters we aimed to improve (e.g., the thickness uniformity of molded PDMS), as well as illustrative results pertaining to the establishment of cell cultures using these methods will also be presented.

Keywords: cell culture; microfluidic; organ-on-chip; rapid prototyping.

Grants and funding

TCC acknowledges Canada’s National Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) for funding her CGSM scholarship. S.M.G. gratefully acknowledges the support of a Mitacs Elevate postdoctoral fellowship. This work was supported by Mitacs, Inc., reference number IT13602, in collaboration with Providence Health Care. This work was also supported by NSERC, reference number RGPIN-2020-04798.