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Design only · h.r.3.3 PDK

Albumin Urinalysis Chip

albumin

Urinary albumin assay chip.

H.R.3.3 design, made by the design software

Designed by Erica Francis · Gale Lab, University of Utah

Albumin Urinalysis Chip. A computer render of the design, not a photograph: its body drawn see-through, its channels in orange. The chip is 19.4 mm × 12.2 mm × 3.8 mm. Beside it, its cross-section across the middle.
Rendered from its design files, not photographed: the body see-through, the channels orange, and its cross-section beside it. Pictures in one family share one scale.

Geometry

Top view of the Albumin Urinalysis Chip, generated from OpenSCAD source Isometric view of the Albumin Urinalysis Chip, generated from OpenSCAD source

Top view (left) and isometric view (right) of the placed-and-routed chip. Rendered with OpenSCAD from the chip’s SCAD source, albumin_reroute.scad. Click for high-resolution.

Download: PNG (top) · PNG (iso) · SCAD source ↓

Specifications

Inputs
4 (soln1, soln2, soln3, soln4)
Outputs
1 (out)
Mixers
3 × diffmix_25px_0
Serpentine channels
4 (p_serpentine_0, _1, _2, _3 — see pcell manifest)
Substrate
2550 × 1600 × 230 (h.r.3.3 PDK)
Standard cells
diffmix_25px_0, p_serpentine
Status
H.R.3.3 design, made by the design software

Assay

This chip is designed to measure urinary albumin concentration via an immunoturbidimetric assay. Anti-human-albumin antibodies bind albumin in the sample and form aggregates that scatter light; the resulting turbidity is measured spectrophotometrically and is proportional to the albumin concentration in the original sample.

Clinically, urinary albumin quantification supports kidney function screening: albumin in urine (microalbuminuria) is an early marker of glomerular damage, with strong predictive value for chronic kidney disease in diabetic and hypertensive patients.

The chemistry is adapted from the Beckman Coulter AU480 reagent kit BSB38858 (Microalbumin). The chip implements passive resistance-metering to combine the urine sample with three reagent streams at the volumetric ratios required by the assay protocol; the output channel collects the mixed product for off-chip spectrophotometric readout.

Files

albumin_reroute.scad is the placed-and-routed 3D geometry — the main OpenSCAD source for this chip. h.r.3.3_albumin_pcells.lef contains chip-specific cell abstracts. pcell_out_scad lists the parametric serpentine-channel variants this chip required (with L1 / L2 / turn count). The PNG renders are high-resolution versions of the views shown in the Geometry section above.

Papers

  • Related methodology archetype

    Goenner, B., Temple, S., Zapata, S., Wakeham, D., Snelgrove, A., Gaillardon, P.-E., Nordin, G. P., & Gale, B. K. (2025). An open source platform to automate the design, verification, and manufacture of 3D printed microfluidic devices. Scientific Reports, 15, 33077. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-15976-9

Applications

For research use only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.

A design for kidney function screening by urinary albumin quantification: albumin in urine is an early marker of glomerular damage and chronic kidney disease. One of the urinalysis chip designs in the Gale Lab urinalysis chip family (Erica Francis).

Tags

  • chip
  • demo
  • discrete-microfluidics
  • h.r.3.3
  • urinalysis
  • albumin-assay
  • immunoturbidimetric
  • spectrophotometric
  • passive-metering
  • multi-input

Citation & license

Erica Francis, Gale Lab, University of Utah

See the Papers section above for the related methodology archetype citation.

Design files from the public openmfda_flow repository (utah-MFDA), commit cc5dfc5 of 29 May 2026, on its urinalysis_suite_automation branch.

License: MIT (Copyright (c) 2021 utah-MFDA; Copyright (c) 2026 Gale Lab, University of Utah).