Abstract

Isolation of Cells from Undiluted Whole Blood Using Inertial Microfluidics

Ian Papautsky, Professor of Bioengineering, Co-Director, NSF Center for Advanced Design & Manufacturing of Integrated Microfluidics, University of Illinois at Chicago

Inertial microfluidics is receiving considerable attention for applications in cell separation and liquid biopsy.  However, while these devices have been widely explored for cell separation, sample dilution is necessary. Here, we report on a novel approach to achieve cell separation directly from unprocessed whole blood based solely on cell size.  The separation is achieved through coupling of inertial effects with shear-induced diffusion. Our results from high-speed imaging reveal that focusing of larger cells near the channel centerline is possible, leading to easy separation. Whole blood spiked with fluorescently labeled beads and cells was used to demonstrate the separation principle and its performance without any sample pretreatment. Results confirm the high quality of performance in terms of efficiency (>90%) and RBC rejection rate (>96%).  This work also successfully demonstrates the use of an inertial microfluidic device as a laboratory tool for sorting target cells from undiluted whole blood.