Microfluidic Chip Development and Testing

Abstract

The placenta represents one of biology’s most important membrane’s, yet the study of the characteristics of said membrane is very difficult to simulate in the lab. While there have been methods of creating microfluidic chips to test the biomechanics of this membrane, they require complicated and expensive manufacturing processes. The microfluidic device described in this paper was created with the intent of testing the biomechanic characteristics of the amnion membrane with the use of materials and methods more commonly found in laboratories. The results show that although further testing is required, the microfluidic chip was successful in terms of creating a flow that could be used to test the characteristics of the amnion membrane ex-vivo.