The design of microfluidic biochips is now facing the challenges of low-efficiency and high-cost. To tackle these challenges, we leveraged the research results of design automation tool suites on microfluidic biochips into cloud services and further developed the IoT-based control system. We named this open-source microfluidic design ecosystem as OpenFluidics. OpenFluidics allows users to design and operate microfluidic biochips with high efficiency at low cost. Through unified design standards, users can share their designs and freely combine the design concepts of other users. These will help the community continue to grow and form an excellent microfluidic design ecosystem.

Our team has been a leading advocate for pioneering design automation solution for the innovative synthesis and optimization of microfluidic biochips, from physical modeling to fluidic-level synthesis and then to chip-level design. Our work opened new research directions and demonstrated how EDA help the fast advancement of research in microfluidic biochips. 
As early as 2010, we already discovered the gap between design phase and manufacturing phase, of digital microfluidic biochips, and that may result the chip is not manufacturable. Since then, multiple companies have developed commercial products based upon the ideas and concepts stimulated by his research. Examples of impact include the ePlex system from GenMark Dx, the NeoPrep sample preparation system from Illumina, etc.

The design of microfluidic biochips is now facing the challenges of low-efficiency and high-cost. To tackle these challenges, we leveraged the research results of design automation tool suites on microfluidic biochips into cloud services and further developed the IoT-based control system. We named this open-source microfluidic design ecosystem as OpenFluidics. OpenFluidics allows users to design and operate microfluidic biochips with high efficiency at low cost. OpenFluidics allowing researchers, entrepreneurs, students, and hobbyists alike to focus on their own ideas and applications without having to master the subtleties of microfluidic engineering and manufacturing. The proposed OpenFluidics is envisioned to have significant impacts on the field of microfluidics.