Rapid Prototyping System™

Shrink is developing a low cost biochip prototyping station and accompanying software suite which provides for the rapidly design, fabrication and manufacture of customizable biological research chips, including more complicated microfluidic assays such as integrated lab-on-a-chip (LOC) devices. A lab-on-a-chip device is an integrated biodevice that contains several lab functions on a single “chip”. Specific examples include: real-time PCR, pathogen and disease detection, biochemical assays, immunoassays, clinical lab assays, blood sample preparations, etc.

Presently, in order to microfabricate the intricate and highly precise features used in microfluidic and LOC applications, highly trained workers are need to perform complicated tasks, including the operation of a multi-million dollar capital equipment suite of machines.

The ShrinkChip RPS™ consists of a “direct-write” plotter that cuts and engraves channels in a NanoShrink™ film and a fixture for aligning and sealing channels together. The station is also capable of cutting channels in a variety of laminate films to integrate functional layers such as membranes and filters. The total design cycle for such a system is reduced to 30-90 minutes. Scaling the prototyped parts to production quantities is also possible with technologies such as hot embossing.

The ShrinkChip RPS™ is the center of a potential product offering that includes consumables such as specialized blades and the NanoShrink™ material, software to help users create microfluidic designs with predesigned microfluidic components, and services for transferring product designs to production. We intend to service the machines through a third party.

The ShrinkChip RPS™ would be able to produce inexpensive, polymeric microfluidic devices with features comparable to more complicated prototyping systems. It is capable of producing 8μm channels and 35μm wide positive features, with aspect ratios up to 8 and channel depth from 25 to 600μm. The main benefit from this system is the ability to produce prototypes in less than an hour, eliminating the need for labs to contract out their prototyping, especially proof of concept microfluidic designs.

The main advantages the ShrinkChip RPS™ has over other prototyping methods are cost and speed. A capital investment of $20K for a lab/customer is significantly less than most other prototyping equipment, making it affordable for each lab to purchase and maintain their own cutting plotter, increasing the incentive to test new ideas. The most expensive consumable would be the blades, which are less expensive than a photomask and can be used for more than one design. In addition, the polymer films are inexpensive enough to try out many concepts over multiple dimensions to produce optimized features.

Speed is the ShrinkChip RPS™ most important advantage for truly rapid prototyping LOC applications. It can create micro-structures in less than 30 minutes without photolithographic processes or chemicals. Laboratories without access to clean room microfabrication facilities can quickly design, build, and test first stage microfluidic device prototypes. (Such advantages are also beneficial to established microfabrication facilities.) The time and prototyping costs saved will allow researchers to focus on the application development before moving on to more expensive fabrication techniques. Being able to quickly build a device and test a concept accelerates the design cycle and can bring a product-to-market or results-to-publication faster.

Not only is the ShrinkChip RPS™ a useful R&D prototyping tool, Shrink is also developing companion technologies to increase the utility and appeal of the ShrinkChip RPS™. Shrink is developing a novel add-on tool for its ShrinkChip RPS™ application platform by way of a 3-dimensional vortex micromixer. Because microfluidic devices allow for the use of very small quantities of reagents and samples, one barrier has been the inefficiency in mixing disparate solutions necessary for reactions to occur. The 3-D vortex micromixer has been successfully demonstrated by Shrink’s scientific partners and several prototypes are being developed for addition to current ShrinkChip RPS™ substrates.