Passive devices for high throughput liquid handling*

Handling precise volumes of liquid is essential in myriad experiments, from chemistry to thelife sciences. Traditional methods to transfer liquids include manual and automated pipetting.When running many experiments, manual pipetting is time consuming and tedious. Using robotscan reduce labor and speed up procedures, but leads to high capital costs that concentrate thenecessary devices to a small number of specialized laboratories. In the Cira lab, we have developeda platform for high throughput liquid handling that enables parallel manipulation of thousands ofindependent liquid mixtures in a few minutes at volumes down to nanoliters, without the need for aunique pipette tip for each reaction. The platform works passively based on capillarity for both lowand high surface tension liquids. Furthermore, a straightforward fabrication protocol, not relying oncomplex micro/nano fabrication or challenging molecular syntheses, should help enable widespreadutility.