Producing sustainable microfluidic devices on a large scale has become a trend in the biomedical field. However, the transition from laboratory prototyping to large-scale industrial production poses several challenges due to the gap between academia and industry. In this context, prototyping with a mass production approach could be the novel strategy necessary to bridge academic research to the market. Here, the performance of polymer inserts to produce PMMA microfluidic devices using the microinjection moulding process is presented. Inserts were fabricated with an additive manufacturing process: material jetting technology. The importance of the inserts’ orientation on the printing plate in order to produce samples with more uniform thickness and lower roughness has been demonstrated using a flat cavity insert. In addition, preliminary tests were carried out on microstructured inserts with inverted channels of various cross-section shapes (semi-circular or trapezoidal) and widths (200 or 300 µm) in order to investigate the microstructures’ resistance during the moulding cycles. The best geometry was found in the channel with the trapezoidal cross-section with a width equal to 300 µm. Finally, a preliminary microfluidic test was performed to demonstrate the devices’ workability.

The TITAN project aims to improve immunotherapy, targeting the efficiency of methods to obtain genetically engineered T cells. Immunotherapy has achieved great success in clinical trials, but it is currently very expensive in terms of time required for analysis, reagents, and samples. TITAN aims to the continuous sampling of critical quality attributes, in order to quickly recognize deviations from the desired range and take appropriate corrective actions on process parameters for an optimal outcome. To achieve its aims, TITAN is currently developing microfluidic and sensing tools for the accurate and efficient real-time monitoring of the T cells amplification process.