Abstract

Controlled Incremental Filtration: A Novel Microfluidic Approach for High-Throughput Separation of Circulating Cells from Whole Blood

Sergey Shevkoplyas, Associate Professor, University Of Houston

Separation of circulating cells from whole blood and other blood-derived samples is an important part of a broad range of medical applications.  A versatile microfluidic approach that is suitable for a large range of particle sizes and high levels of enrichment, with a volumetric throughput sufficient for large-scale applications, has yet to emerge.  Most microfluidic technologies developed for separating circulating cells from blood have been of very little use for large volume processing because of relatively low volumetric throughputs, small minimal feature sizes, and the need for exceedingly dilute samples.  Controlled incremental filtration (CIF), a new microfluidic approach we recently developed, enables a microfluidic device with a relatively small footprint to operate at practical throughputs (>15mL/min), have distinctly manufacturable minimal feature sizes (>20µm), process blood samples without dilution, and concentrate cells of interest >40-fold.  This talk will describe the use of CIF-based devices for leukoreduction of platelet rich plasma, and extraction of lymphocytes from whole blood.