Hydrodynamic Cell Enrichment in Double Spiral Microfluidic Channels

Abstract

Rapid cell separation and enrichment has attracted significant attention because of its important applications in cell biology studies and biomedical diagnostics. we have developed a compact microfluidic platform, composed of 6-loop double spiral microchannels, to separate cancer cells from blood cells. The curved geometry induces a Dean drag force acting on cells to compete with the inertial lift, resulting in different equilibrium positions for different sized cells. The separation chip is characterized with the mixture of 4T1 cells and the murine blood cells at different flow rates, with decent separation and enrichment efficiency.