Microfluidic cell sorting: a review of the advances in the separation of cells from debulking to rare cell isolation

Accurate and high throughput cell sorting is a critical enabling technology in molecular and cellular biology, biotechnology, and medicine. While conventional methods can provide high efficiency sorting in short timescales, advances in microfluidics have enabled the realization of miniaturized devices offering similar capabilities that exploit a variety of physical principles. We classify these technologies as either active or passive. Active systems generally use external fields (e.g., acoustic, electric, magnetic, and optical) to impose forces to displace cells for sorting, whereas passive systems use inertial forces, filters, and adhesion mechanisms to purify cell populations. Cell sorting on microchips…

• NS
  National Science Foundation

  Awards: DMR-1121107, GRF-1106401
• NI
  National Institutes of Health

  Award: R21GM111584