Patent ID: 7351303

Claim:
A method of fabricating a microfluidic device that performs a multistep process, the method comprising the steps of: partitioning the process into a plurality of sequential steps; providing a plurality of stand-alone functional units, each of said plurality of functional units having at least an inlet, an outlet, and at least one microfluidic channel disposed between the inlet and the outlet, the at least one microfluidic channel being enclosed by joined upper and lower surfaces, each of said plurality of functional units being configured for performing each of said plurality of sequential steps, respectively, between the inlet and the outlet and within the at least one microfluidic channel; arranging said plurality of functional units vertically so that at least one of said inlet and outlet for each functional unit is vertically aligned with at least one of said inlet and outlet of an adjacent one of said functional units to form at least one junction that allows fluid communication between adjacent functional units; and combining said arranged plurality of functional units to permit fluid communication between said plurality of functional units to form the microfluidic device.