Abstract

Chip-Based Flow-Cytometry: From CTCs to Extracellular Vesicles

Andrew J deMello, Principal Investigator, ETH Zurich

Imaging flow cytometry (IFC) marries the advantages of optical microscopy and flow cytometry to enable the high-throughput imaging of cells within flowing environments. I will describe how we have leveraged the capabilities of simple microfluidic systems to form novel platforms able to manipulate, process and assay cells in a controlled and high-throughput manner. Using inertial and viscoelastic effects, these systems can operate at throughputs exceeding 400,000 cells/s, extract fluorescence, brightfield, and darkfield images and are capable of multi-parametric quantification and sub-cellular localization of structures down to 500 nm. Additionally, I will describe more recent activities in which similar viscoelastic microfluidic platforms are used to measure the mechanical properties of cells at high-throughput and also isolate and analyse CTCs and extracellular vesicles in a rapid and efficient manner.