Microfluidic label-free bioprocessing

In 1927, English chemist, W. R. Dean, described how the motion of fluid increased as it flowed through a curved pipe, allowing greater separation of particles in the fluid—thus “Dean flow fractionation.”  In this piece, researchers at the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology, explain how Dean’s observation works in a microfluidic device applied to separating reticulocytes for expansion in tissue culture.  They say: “Developments in Dean flow fractionation (DFF) and deterministic lateral displacement (DLD) microfluidic sorting methods are ideal alternatives due to label-free size sorting, throughput scalability and low manufacturing cost. DFF sorting of reticulocytes from whole erythroid culture showed a 2.4-fold increase in cell recovery compared to FACS” (fluorescence-activated cell sorting) “albeit with a lower purity; DLD sorting showed comparable cell recovery and purity with FACS using an inverse-L pillar structure to emphasize size and deformability sorting of reticulocytes.”   MORE

Image Credit:   Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology