These o/s microfluidics devices were made to further explore the lab-on-a-chip idea to culture live organisms on 3d printed parts as part of an MIT course, Open Source Microfluidics for Synthetic Biology.
Traditionally made through stereolithography, microfluidic "lab-on-a-chip" technologies are part of a maturing field of research that involves miniaturizing fluidics systems to mix, move, separate or otherwise process liquids, making it possible to perform bio experiments on devices the size of a stamp, not a room.
As 3d printing these devices is a new area of research, these tests were exploratory and still in progress in the hopes to achieve self-contained microfluidic cell culture systems. Work in this field is explored on a new MIT-designed open-source website, Metafluidics.org,
Research in Collaboration with David Kong, Steven Keating & Jeremy Gam (2014) Matthew Walsh, Daniel S. Kwang Yang Quake & Hsin-ho Huang (2015)