Schematic illustration of the design of the artificial microvascular network (AMVN). Each AMVN microfluidic device contains three identical network units with independent inlets and a common outlet, allowing simultaneous investigation of three separate samples. The channels have a uniform height of 5 μm and widths ranging from 70 μm (‘arteriolar’ inlet and ‘venular’ outlet) down to 5 μm (‘capillaries’). The arrow indicates the overall direction of flow through the device. Inset shows the five capillary microchannels of interest, in which RBC velocity and hematocrit were measured. The capillaries’ widths are (1) 13 μm, (2) 5 μm, (3) 5 μm, (4) 7 μm, and (5) 19 μm.