The typical design, build and fabrication flow utilized in microfluidics requires significant intellectual investment, technical agility, a high startup cost and time investment. The 2016 iGEM Hardware Team, Neptune, in conjunction with CIDAR Lab created an alternative software workflow tackling design and manufacturing barriers. What our team focused on is the implementation stage of this workflow, ensuring that synthetic biologists are able to effectively use the tools provided to them.
The main goals of MARS are to:
- Increase accessibility of Microfluidics
- Design chips that are relevant to the day to day protocols in synthetic biology labs which can be used together to perform more complex protocols
- Create and provide a standardized method of evaluating chip functionality
These three goals led to the creation of the three main branches of MARS: Microfluidics 101, the MARS Repository and Fluid Functionality. Using this end to end system, microfluidics can become a more accessible and practical tool for synthetic biologists to integrate into their labs.
Use the graphic and images below to navigate the three branches of MARS and get a more in-depth look at what we have created over the summer.
