Figure 1.

Schematic of the microfluidic drop maker for use with SVM. To form water drops in oil, the device must be hydrophobic, which we achieve by treating the channels with Aquapel. The water and surfactant-containing oil are loaded into pipette tips inserted into the device inlets at the locations indicated. To pump the fluids through the drop maker, a syringe applies a vacuum to the outlet; this sucks the fluids through the drop maker, forming drops. The drops are collected into the suction syringe, where they can be stored, incubated, and reintroduced into a microfluidic device for additional processing.