Emerging 3D printing technologies and methodologies for microfluidic development.

This review paper examines recent (mostly 2018 or later) advancements in 3D printed microfluidics. Microfluidic devices are widely applied in various fields such as drug delivery, point-of-care diagnosis, and bioanalytical research. In addition to soft lithography, 3D printing has become an appealing technology to develop microfluidics recently.

A quantitative sensing system based on a 3D-printed ion-selective electrode for rapid and sensitive detection of bacteria in biological fluid.

Bacterial infections, such as urinary tract infections, are crucial health problems. Here, we report a new potentiometric sensor to detect bacteria sensitively, accurately, and quickly. First, a customizable, 3D printed Ag selective electrode was fabricated as the probe.

Making quantitative biomicrofluidics from microbore tubing and 3D-printed adapters.

Microfluidic technology has tremendously facilitated the development of cell cultures and studies. Conventionally, microfluidic devices are fabricated with extensive facilities by well-trained researchers, which hinder the widespread adoption of the technology for broader applications. Enlightened by the fact that low-cost microbore tubing is a natural microfluidic channel, we developed a series of adaptors in a toolkit that can twine, connect, organize, and configure the tubing to produce functional microfluidic units.

From cells-on-a-chip to organs-on-a-chip: scaffolding materials for 3D cell culture in microfluidics.

It is an emerging research area to integrate scaffolding materials in microfluidic devices for 3D cell culture (organs-on-a-chip). The technology of organs-on-a-chip holds the potential to obviate the gaps between pre-clinical and clinical studies. As accumulating evidence shows the importance of extracellular matrix in in vitro cell culture, significant efforts have been made to integrate 3D ECM/scaffolding materials in microfluidics.

3D-Printed Microfluidic Devices for Enhanced Online Sampling and Direct Optical Measurements.

3D printing has emerged as a robust technique to fabricate reliable and reproducible microfluidic devices. However, a limitation of 3D-printed devices has been the low transparency even when printed in a "clear" material. There are currently no reports regarding direct optical measurements through a 3D-printed device.