title: Microfluidics for cell separation.
abstract: The need for efficient cell separation, an essential preparatory step in many biological and medical assays, has led to the recent development of numerous microscale separation techniques. This review describes the current state-of-the-art in microfluidics-based cell separation techniques. Microfluidics-based sorting offers numerous advantages, including reducing sample volumes, faster sample processing, high sensitivity and spatial resolution, low device cost, and increased portability. The techniques presented are broadly classified as being active or passive depending on the operating principles. The various separation principles are explained in detail along with popular examples demonstrating their application toward cell separation. Common separation metrics, including separation markers, resolution, efficiency, and throughput, of these techniques are discussed. Developing efficient microscale separation methods that offering greater control over cell population distribution will be important in realizing true point-of-care (POC) lab-on-a-chip (LOC) systems.
authors.affiliation: BioSystems and Micromechanics (BioSyM) IRG, Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) Centre, Singapore, Singapore.
authors.forename: Ali Asgar S
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Bhagat
authors.forename: Hansen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bow
authors.forename: Han Wei
authors.initials: HW
authors.lastname: Hou
authors.forename: Swee Jin
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.forename: Jongyoon
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Han
authors.forename: Chwee Teck
authors.initials: CT
authors.lastname: Lim
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002469:Cell Separation / Q000379:methods*; D005434:Flow Cytometry / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D018189:Immunomagnetic Separation / Q000379:methods; D044085:Microfluidics / Q000379:methods*