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US 7,704,728 B2Granted
Microfluidic gravity pump with constant flow rate
AssigneeUniversity of Michigan
InventorsShuichi Takayama, Joseph Chang, Dongeun Huh, Xiaoyue Zhu, Brenda Cho, Gary D. Smith
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Abstract
A microfluidic system employs a microchannel and a gravity driven pump comprising horizontally oriented fluid supply reservoirs which supplies fluid to the microchannel at a substantially constant rate. The device is useful for numerous microfluidic applications, for example in the culture and/or treatment of biological systems under constant flow-induced stress, cell-size sorting, motile sperm sorting, or embryo culture.
Claims21
A gravity driven pump comprising:
- at least one microchannel with an inlet in fluid communication with a first horizontally oriented fluid supply reservoir and an outlet in fluid communication with a second horizontally oriented fluid supply reservoir, wherein the ceiling of the first supply reservoir is positioned above the ceiling of the second supply reservoir;
- wherein the first fluid supply reservoir comprises a plurality of sections having different heights, hydrophilicities, or hydrophobicities, such that liquid within each section of the supply reservoir (i) occupies the entire internal height of the first supply reservoir as liquid flows out of the supply reservoir and (ii) flows at a generally constant rate within each section, such that rate of flow will alter in a stepwise manner, without moving the supply reservoirs, based on the heights, hydrophilicities, or hydrophobicities of each section of the first fluid supply reservoir.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.