BIOMEDICAL AND HEALTH Evaluating Measurement Quality of Microfluidic Cell-based Assays

Microfluidic technologies show promise as miniaturized, portable platforms for cell assays, but must be tested to establish confidence of within-device consistency, assurance of day-to-day reproducibility, and clear understanding of how experimental conditions may affect outcomes. As an example, we assessed repeatability in a 64-chamber microfluidic device and measured reproducibility in devices prepared on different days, tested robustness using different illumination sources and reservoir-to-device tubing choices, determined performance across a range of cell loading densities, and compared results from microfluidic devices and larger volume traditional assays.