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Background  The study of malaria transmission requires the experimental infection of mosquitoes with  Plasmodium  gametocytes. In the laboratory, this is achieved using artificial membrane feeding apparatus that simulate body temperature and skin of the host, and so permit mosquito feeding on reconstituted gametocyte-containing blood. Membrane feeders either use electric heating elements or complex glass chambers to warm the infected blood; both of which are expensive to purchase and can only be sourced from a handful of specialized companies. Presented and tested here is a membrane feeder that can be inexpensively printed using 3D-printing technology.    Results  Using the  Plasmodium falciparum  laboratory strain NF54, three independent standard membrane feeding assays (SMFAs) were performed comparing the 3D-printed feeder against a commercial glass feeder. Exflagellation rates did not differ between the two feeders. Furthermore, no statistically significant difference was found in the oocyst load nor oocyst intensity of  Anopheles stephensi  mosquitoes (mean oocyst range 1.3–6.2 per mosquito; infection prevalence range 41–79%).    Conclusions  Open source provision of the design files of the 3D-printed feeder will facilitate a wider range of laboratories to perform SMFAs in laboratory and field settings, and enable them to freely customize the design to their own requirements.    Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (10.1186/s12936-018-2436-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

An inexpensive open source 3D-printed membrane feeder for human malaria transmission studies