Abstract

High-Purity and High-Sensitivity Rare-Cell Isolation with Aliquot Sorting

Daniel Chiu, Professor, University of Washington

This presentation describes the high-sensitivity isolation of rare cells, including circulating tumor cells and fetal cells, using fluorescence activated aliquot sorting. Here, a blood sample is divided into nanoliter volumes or aliquots, then analyzed and sorted based on the presence or absence of a rare cell. By performing two rapid, on the millisecond timescale, back-to-back sorting, we also demonstrate isolation of rare cells with high purity. Finally, we drastically increased the number of nucleated cells sorted by first concentrating peripheral blood mononuclear cells from whole blood, which translated into an equivalent blood volume analyzed by over an order of magnitude, from 8mL to over 100mL per experiment.