UC Riverside

Laboratories-on-a-Chip (LoC), including their programmable variants (pLoC) (both flow- and droplet-based), are poised to transform biological and chemical experimentation through miniaturization and automation. Adoption of (p)LoC devices suffers from human-usability issues deriving from necessary abstractions not previously available to practitioners. Primarily, programming or synthesizing (p)LoC devices is traditionally done using what would be analogous to assembly programming. This thesis introduces those necessary abstractions which enable practitioners to leverage (p)LoC devices for further research and experimentation in a safe, simple, and automated manner. These abstractions consist of a fully-functional "cookbook-style" domain specific language which targets (p)LoC devices (both flow- and droplet-based technologies), including a type system capable of preventing dangerous mixtures of chemicals from occurring, and an elegant solution for safely storing or disposing of chemical reagents.