Figure 1. Schematic of the Blood-on-a-chip preparation protocol.

The protocol is based on the original protocol for the preparation of red blood cell ghosts (a). The RBCs are then sonicated to form small vesicles with a uniform size distribution and centrifuged (b) before the solution is applied to silicon wafers (c). The membranes are dried and annealed (d) to form well developed multi-lamellar stacks of red blood cell membranes supported on silicon wafers.