Design and simulation of biomimetic microfluidic designs to achieve uniform flow and DNA capture for high-throughput multiplexing†

Abstract

High-throughput multi-analyte point-of-care detection is often constrained by the limited number of analytes that can be effectively monitored. This study introduces bio-inspired microfluidic designs optimized for multi-analyte detection using 38–42 biosensors. Drawing inspiration from the human spinal cord and leaf vein networks, these perfusion-oriented designs ensure uniform flow velocity and consistent molecular capture while maintaining spatial separation to prevent cross-talk. In silico optimizations achieved velocity profile uniformity with coefficients of variance of 0.89% and 0.86% for the spine- and leaf-inspired designs, respectively. However, simulations revealed that velocity uniformity alone is insufficient for accurate molecular capture prediction without consistent reaction site channel dimensions. The bio-inspired designs demonstrated superior performance, stabilizing—coefficient of variance below 20%—in DNA capture within 10 minutes, compared to 68 minutes for a simple branched design. This work underscores the potential of bio-inspired microfluidics to enable scalable, uniform, and high-performance systems for multi-analyte detection.