Teach your microscope how to print: low-cost and rapid-iteration microfabrication for biology

Abstract

The application of traditional microfabrication techniques to biological research is hindered by their reliance on clean rooms, expensive or toxic materials, and slow iteration cycles. We present an accessible microfabrication workflow that addresses these challenges by integrating consumer 3D printing techniques and repurposing standard fluorescence microscopes equipped with DMDs for maskless photolithography. Our method achieves micrometer-scale precision across centimeter-sized areas without clean room infrastructure, using affordable and readily available consumables. We demonstrate the versatility of this approach through four biological applications: inducing cytoskeletal protrusions via 1 μm-resolution surface topographies; micropatterning to standardize cell and tissue morphology; fabricating multilayer microfluidic devices for confined cell migration studies; imprinting agar chambers for long-time tracking of C. elegans. Our protocol drastically reduces material costs compared to conventional methods and enables design-to-device turnaround within a day. By leveraging open-source microscope control software and existing lab equipment, our workflow lowers the entry barrier to microfabrication, enabling labs to prototype custom solutions for diverse experimental needs while maintaining compatibility with soft lithography and downstream biological assays.