Dielectrophoretic Separator for Cell/Pathogen Separation

描述（由申请人提供）：分离和浓缩稀有细胞或病原体的能力是许多生物和医学应用的基础，通常形成下游生物测定的起点。 目前用于细胞分离的方法包括离心、过滤、荧光和磁激活细胞分选以及介电泳（DEP）细胞分离。 其中，DEP分离器提供了速度、灵活性、可控性和易于应用于自动化的优点。 然而，包含二维（2-D）平面电极阵列的常规DEP细胞分离器通常不能在对于稀有细胞或病原体分离必不可少的时间处理大量样品。 提出了一种新的三维（3-D）DEP细胞/病原体分离系统，该系统能够处理大体积的样品，并显著提高了收集效率。 作为新系统与临床肿瘤学、传染病和生物战相关性的例子，人类单核细胞（U937）和宫颈癌（HeLa）细胞将从血液中分离出来，大肠杆菌和伤寒沙门氏菌将从血液中分离出来，球形芽孢杆菌将从水中浓缩出来。这些实施例解决了降低血液中癌细胞检测阈值的需求，目的是诊断传染病和生物战剂，而不需要首先培养病原体。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The ability to isolate and concentrate rare cells or pathogens is fundamental to numerous biological and medical applications, often forming the starting point for down stream bioassays. Current approaches for cell isolation include centrifugation, filtration, fluorescent- and magnetic-activated cell sorting, and dielectrophoretic (DEP) cell separation. Among them, the DEP separator provides the advantages of speed, flexibility, controllability, and ease of application to automation. However, conventional DEP cell separators, containing two-dimensional (2-D) planar electrode arrays, often cannot process large volumes of samples at a time that is essential for rare cell or pathogen separation. A new three-dimensional (3-D) DEP cell/pathogen separation system is proposed, which is capable of processing large volume of samples with significantly improved collection efficiency. As examples of the relevance of the new system to clinical oncology, infectious disease and biowarfare, human monocytic (U937) and cervic carcinoma (HeLa) cells will be separated from blood, Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimudum bacteria will be separated from blood, and Bacillus globigii will be concentrated from water. There examples address the needs of lowering the threshold for detection of cancer cells in blood, with the goal of diagnosing infectious disease and biowarfare agents without the need to first culture the pathogens.