Isolation and retrieval of circulating tumor cells using centrifugal forces : Scientific Reports : Nature Publishing Group

Isolation and retrieval of circulating tumor cells using centrifugal forces : Scientific Reports : Nature Publishing Group

This paper is from Clearbridge Biomedics, manufacturers of a commercial CTC system (CTC chip), which    is used to isolate CTCs based on physical properties (size and deformability)

The present paper uses inertial microfluidics (explained here and here ), which uses a spiral channel and the centrifugal forces generated within the channel to separate cells based on their physical properties.

http://www.nature.com/srep/2013/130212/srep01259/carousel/srep01259-f1.jpg

Performance Summary:
> 85% recovery
> positive CTCs enumeration in all samples from patients with metastatic lung cancer (n = 20; 5–88 CTCs per mL
> throughput: 3ml/hr.

Commentary:
This work is concurrently ongoing at Clearbridge and University of Cincinnati (now seemingly independently, though the source of origin is university of cincinnati). Prof. Ian Papautsky from the University of Cincinnati has pioneered inertial microfluidics-based cell sorting for a number of years, leading to many publications.