While creating flow and adding reagents in a microfluidic device sounds simple, it results in a tangle of tubes and fittings that inevitably leads to leaks and failures. Tubing-based systems may work for one-off studies on the lab bench, but they are impossible to integrate into an automated workflow.
The proliferation of reliable and low-cost lab robotics has enabled groups from academia to industry to harness the benefits of automation, even at small scales. Combining the power of automation with the precision of microfluidics will create the next step-change in throughput for the life sciences. However, chip-to-world challenges are the remaining barrier to adopting robotics in microfluidic workflows.
The pipette interface allows custom microfluidic devices to drop into any fluid handlers that use standard 50, 200, or 1000 microliter pipette tips. Like other Parallel hardware, it can be built directly into your custom device in prototype quantities or supplied in bulk when scaling up manufacturing.
