Microfluidic Techniques for Isolation and Analysis of Floating Cells
Raymond Hiu Wai Lam, Member, IEEE
Department of Biomedical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
City University of Hong Kong Shenzhen Research Institute
rhwlam@cityu.edu.hk
Abstract
Isolation and analysis of floating cells has been technically challenging, including the cell positioning and characterization of the cells in the floating state. For example, isolation of floating rare cells, such as circulating tumor cells, has low abundance and limited time-frames of expressions of relevant cell characteristics. Deep phenotyping of single cancer cells for both the mechanical and biochemical properties is of critical importance in the era of precision medicine to advance understanding of relationships between gene mutation and cell phenotype and to elucidate the biological nature of tumor heterogeneity. On the other hand, quantitative and dynamic analyses of immune cell secretory cytokines are essential for precise determination and characterization of the “immune phenotype” of patients for clinical diagnosis and treatment of immune-related diseases.
In this presentation, the speaker will present a couple microfluidic techniques for the floating cell analysis: 1) a hydrodynamic mechanism to sequentially trap and isolate floating cancer cells in biosamples through a series of microsieves to obtain up to 100% trapping yield and >95% sequential isolation efficiency, 2) a microfluidic elasticity microcytometer for multiparametric biomechanical and biochemical phenotypic profiling of free-floating, live single cancer cells for quantitative, simultaneous characterizations of cell size, cell deformability/stiffness, and surface receptors, and 3) a microfluidic sensing chip integrated with cytometric fluorescent microbeads for real-time and multiplexed monitoring of immune cell cytokine secretion dynamics, consuming only a negligible sample volume without interrupting the immune cell culture.
Short Bio
Raymond H. W. Lam is currently working as an Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at City University of Hong Kong. He has obtained a first honor B.Eng. degree and an M.Phil. degree in Automation and Computer-Aided Engineering from Chinese University of Hong Kong, and a Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before joining CityU, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at University of Michigan. He has interdisciplinary research experience in cell mechanobiology, bacteriology, microfluidics, microfabrication, computational methods, software development and circuit/device design. His overall research objective is to bridge science and engineering knowledge and currently he aims at developing/applying microengineering techniques to advance the cell biology research.