Microfluidic Devices for Cell Analysis

Microfluidics and BioMEMStechnology has increasingly been used as a tool for studying small volumes oftissue and even individual cells. One of the most important benefits ofmicrofluidic technology is the potential to build devices that analyze and sortmammalian cells. The "sorting problem" typically requires that a fewcells be selected and isolated from a larger population of hundreds, thousandsor even millions of other cells. For example, cancer tumor cells may resideamong a large population of healthy cells, but it would be of great interest toidentify, isolate and study only the cancer cells. In another application, onemay want to determine the number of white blood cells within a sample of blood.We have developed microfluidic devices that enable researchers to select cellsfrom a population by a variety of methods, including antibody staining,dielectrophoretic selection, and physical size selection. These devices haveapplications in cancer research where cancer cells must be identified fromnormal tissue, but where only small samples of tissue are available. In thistalk, we will present some of our microfluidic cell sorting devices, discusstheir physical principles, and their use in biological applications.