Low-Cost Microfluidic System for Detection of CTC's

虽然循环肿瘤细胞（CTCs）在治疗许多不同类型癌症方面的临床应用正在实现，但由于观察细胞（红细胞和白细胞）的数量非常高，而CTCs的丰度很低（< 1.0 /7.5 ml全血），从外周血中选择它们并枚举它们是一项艰巨的挑战。这个项目的目标是制造和评估一种令人兴奋的分析ctc的新技术的性能。该技术包括一个由传统塑料（如有机玻璃）制成的流体盒，通过微复制，可以在20分钟内从血液中选择ctc，回收率为10%。墨盒还将使用不需要光学设备的非标签程序枚举选定的CTCs；枚举是由一对电极组成的电导率传感器完成的，电极与设备的输出通道正交，提供近100%的采样和检测效率。墨盒还将引导ctc进入一个小室，用荧光染料标记的抗体对细胞进行染色，并使用荧光显微镜对它们进行表征，而无需扫描。该流体盒将具有显微镜载玻片大小的足迹。

While the clinical utility of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) for the management of many different types of cancers are being realized, the challenge in selecting them from peripheral blood and enumerating them is daunting due to the exceedingly high numbers of spectator cells (erythrocytes and leukocytes) and the low abundance of the CTCs (<I0/7.5 ml of whole blood). The goal of this project is to fabricate and evaluate the performance of an exciting new technology for the analysis of CTCs. The technology consists of a fluidic cartridge made from conventional plastics, such as Plexiglas, through micro-replication that can select CTCs from blood in under 20 min with recoveries >go%. The cartridge will also enumerate the selected CTCs using a non-labeling process that requires no optical equipment; enumeration is accomplished using a conductivity sensor comprised of a pair of electrodes situated orthogonal to the output channel of the device that provides nearly 100% sampling and detection efficiency. The cartridge will also direct the CTCs into a small chamber, stain the cells with antibodies labeled with a fluorescent dye and characterize them using fluorescence microscopy without scanning. The fluidic cartridge will possess a footprint the sue of a microscope slide.