Dielectrophoretic Separator for Cell/Pathogen Separation

描述(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，通常构成下游生物检测的起点。目前细胞分离的方法包括离心法、过滤法、荧光和磁激活细胞分选法以及介电泳法(DEP)细胞分离。其中，DEP分离器具有速度快、灵活性强、可控性好、便于自动化应用等优点。然而，传统的DEP细胞分离器包含二维(2-D)平面电极阵列，通常不能一次处理大量样品，而这对稀有细胞或病原体分离是必不可少的。提出了一种新的三维(3D)DEP细胞/病原体分离系统，该系统能够处理大量样本，并显著提高了采集效率。作为新系统与临床肿瘤学、传染病和生物武器相关的例子，将从血液中分离人类单核细胞(U937)和宫颈癌细胞(HeLa)，从血液中分离大肠杆菌和鼠伤寒沙门氏菌，从水中浓缩球形芽孢杆菌。这些例子涉及降低血液中癌细胞检测门槛的需要，目的是在不需要首先培养病原体的情况下诊断传染病和生物制剂。

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.