Microfluidic-Enabled Print-to-Screen Platform for High-Throughput Screening of Combinatorial Chemotherapy

Since the 1960s, combination chemotherapy has been widely utilized as a standard method to treat cancer. However, because of the potentially enormous number of drug candidates and combinations, conventional identification methods of the effective drug combinations are usually associated with significantly high operational costs, low throughput screening, laborious and time-consuming procedures, and ethical concerns. In this paper, we present a low-cost, high-efficiency microfluidic print-to-screen (P2S) platform, which integrates combinatorial screening with biomolecular printing for high-throughput screening of anticancer drug combinations. This P2S platform provides several distinct advantages and features, including automatic combinatorial printing, high-throughput parallel drug screening, modular disposable cartridge, and biocompatibility, which can potentially speed up the entire discovery cycle of potent drug combinations. Microfluidic impact printing utilizing plug-and-play microfluidic cartridges is experimentally characterized with controllable droplet volume and accurate positioning. Furthermore, the combinatorial print-to-screen assay is demonstrated in a proof-of-concept biological experiment which can identify the positive hits among the entire drug combination library in a parallel and rapid manner. Overall, this microfluidic print-to-screen platform offers a simple, low-cost, high-efficiency solution for high-throughput large-scale combinatorial screening and can be applicable for various emerging applications in drug cocktail discovery.