Design and construction of three-dimensional physiologically-based vascular branching networks for respiratory assist devices.

Microfluidic lab-on-a-chip devices are changing the way that diagnostics and drug development are conducted, based on the increased precision, miniaturization and efficiency of these systems relative to prior methods. However, the full potential of microfluidics as a platform for therapeutic medical devices such as extracorporeal organ support has not been realized, in part due to limitations in the ability to scale current designs and fabrication techniques toward clinically relevant rates of blood flow. Here we report on a method for designing and fabricating microfluidic devices supporting blood flow rates per layer greater than 10 mL min for respiratory support applications, leveraging advances in precision machining to generate fully three-dimensional physiologically-based branching microchannel networks.