Microfluidics on Cancer, Sperm and Bacteria Research

Microfluidics has plenty of applications in cell biology. We develop a microfluidic device to characterize flow through a cancer cell aggregate which could provide insight to cancer spreading. We also develop a device to trap single cells for isolation procedures. In particular, detecting rare cells from a large amount of other cells and particles, i.e. Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs) detection in blood circulation system, is indispensable to medical treatment and cell isolation research. In addition, we present theoretical models to predict the response of a swimming spermatozoon and a helically flagellated bacterium to a unidirectional dielectrophoretic (DEP) force with its strength varying linearly in space. We show the feasibility to utilize this phenomenon to achieve gender selection and bacterial focusing.