Microfluidic Chips Made With Shrinky Dinks

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 4, 2007 @08:38AM from the improvising-science dept.

SoyChemist writes "When she started her job as a new professor at UC Merced, Michelle Khine was stuck without a clean room or semiconductor fabrication equipment, so she went MacGyver and started making Lab-on-a-Chip devices in her kitchen with Shrinky Dinks, a laser printer, and a toaster oven. She would print a negative image of the channels onto the polystyrene sheets and then shrink them with heat. The miniaturized pattern served as a perfect mold for forming rounded, narrow channels in PDMS — a clear, synthetic rubber."

1 of 149 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Saving a lot of money by SoapDish · 2007-12-04 09:34 · Score: 5, Interesting

A former professor of mine works with lab on a chip stuff. She really stressed the point that computer and mathematical modelling is extremely important in engineering, particularly her research, because microfluidic chips are extremely expensive. I can't remember the exact number, but it was somewhere above $1000/chip.

Sure, the name "shrinky dinks" is funny, but being able to make these lab-on-a-chips affordably is a big deal.