Background What We Can Offer? Workflow Why Choose Us? Published Data FAQs Featured Services Feature Products
Accelerate Your Research and Development!
Are you currently facing challenges such as low sample throughput, high reagent costs, and the complexity of analyzing rare cells from heterogeneous populations? Creative Biolabs' custom microfluidic chip development service helps you overcome these limitations by providing a streamlined, integrated solution for high-efficiency cell capture and on-chip labelling, enabling precise single-cell analysis and accelerating your research.
Contact our team to get an inquiry now!
Background
Cell capture and labelling microfluidic chips represent a cornerstone of modern single-cell analysis. This technology miniaturizes complex laboratory protocols onto a single, palm-sized device, offering unprecedented control over fluid dynamics and cellular interactions at the microscale. Unlike traditional bulk methods that provide an average response from a cell population, microfluidic devices enable the isolation and individual analysis of single cells, which is crucial for studying cellular heterogeneity, a key factor in drug resistance, disease progression, and therapeutic response.
The core of this technology lies in its ability to precisely manipulate fluids and cells within microchannels. Cell capture can be achieved through various mechanisms, including active methods using external forces (e.g., dielectrophoresis, acoustic fields, or magnetic beads) and passive methods relying on physical properties such as cell size, shape, and deformability. Subsequent on-chip labelling, often via immunofluorescence, allows for the highly specific identification and characterization of captured cells, all within the same enclosed environment. This integrated approach minimizes sample handling steps, reduces the risk of contamination, and dramatically decreases the required sample volume and reagent consumption, making it ideal for precious clinical samples.
Fig.1 Schematic of cell separation principles.1,3
Applications
The applications for custom microfluidic chips are vast and span multiple fields of life sciences and diagnostics.
Oncology
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Liquid Biopsy: High-efficiency isolation of rare circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from blood for early cancer detection, prognosis, and monitoring of treatment response.
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Tumor Heterogeneity: Single-cell analysis to uncover genetic and phenotypic differences within a tumor cell population, which is critical for personalized medicine.
Immunology
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Immune Cell Profiling: Isolation and phenotyping of specific immune cell subsets for research into autoimmune diseases, infectious diseases, and cancer immunotherapy.
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Drug Screening: High-throughput screening of T-cells, B-cells, or other immune cells against drug libraries to assess efficacy and toxicity.
Infectious Diseases
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Microorganism Capture: Rapid isolation of bacteria or viruses for diagnostics, antibiotic susceptibility testing, and pathogen detection.
Stem Cell Research
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Cell Sorting and Characterization: Sorting and culturing specific stem cell populations for regenerative medicine and developmental biology studies.
What We Can Offer
Creative Biolabs offers a comprehensive suite of services and products designed to meet all your microfluidic needs.
From concept to a final, validated device, we specialize in the development of bespoke chips tailored for your specific application.
We provide an end-to-end service that includes not just the chip but also the development of optimized protocols, surface functionalization, and validation studies.
If you already have a design, our expertise in various fabrication techniques (soft lithography, 3D printing, etc.) ensures high-quality and high-resolution manufacturing.
For common applications, we offer a selection of pre-designed, ready-to-use microfluidic chips that have been validated for high performance.
Leverage our specialized benefits—Request a quotation today
Workflow
Why Choose Us?
Choosing Creative Biolabs means partnering with a team of experts dedicated to your success. Our deep understanding of microfluidics and cell biology allows us to design and fabricate solutions that are not only technologically advanced but also perfectly suited to your specific biological application.
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Customization and Precision: We don't offer one-size-fits-all solutions. Our services are tailored to meet the unique needs of your research, from the geometry of the microchannels to the surface chemistry for targeted capture.
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Integrated Workflow: Our comprehensive approach, from design to final validation, streamlines your project. We handle all the technical complexities so you can focus on the scientific outcomes.
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High Efficiency and Reproducibility: Our chips are engineered for high-throughput single-cell analysis, significantly reducing sample and reagent consumption while delivering highly reproducible and reliable results.
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Robustness and Reliability: We prioritize robust design and use durable materials to ensure your chips perform consistently, minimizing the risk of clogging and sample loss.
Published Data
Fig.2 The workflow for PCa cell detection from the urine sample employing a spiral microfluidic chip.2,3,
A recent study demonstrated the successful isolation of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from prostate cancer patients using a microfluidic device that leveraged aptamer-based capture. This experimental approach utilized the high specificity and stability of aptamers to bind to target cells, proving to be an effective method for enriching rare cells from a complex sample matrix like blood. The results showed that the microfluidic device achieved a high capture efficiency, enabling the successful isolation of CTCs with high purity. This research validated the device's ability to be a highly sensitive tool, yielding a median CTC count significantly higher than that of conventional methods. For instance, a study using a microfluidic ratchet system, which separates cells based on deformability, achieved a median CTC yield of 178 CTCs/7.5 mL, a remarkable 25-fold increase over the conventional system, which yielded only 7 CTCs/7.5 mL from the same patient group. The experiment also underscored the potential of this technology to provide reliable quantitative data for clinical applications, paving the way for improved liquid biopsy diagnostics and personalized cancer treatment.
FAQs
Q: What types of cells can be captured and labelled using microfluidic devices?
A: Microfluidic devices can be designed to capture a wide variety of cell types, from mammalian cells like circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and immune cells to microorganisms such as bacteria and yeast. The specific capture and labelling are achieved by customizing the chip's surface chemistry with specific ligands, antibodies, or other affinity molecules to target and bind the cells of interest.
Q: How do microfluidic devices compare to conventional cell sorting methods like FACS?
A: Microfluidic devices offer key advantages over bulk methods like fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS). While FACS is powerful, they often require larger sample and reagent volumes and involve multiple handling steps. Microfluidics enables a miniaturized, on-chip workflow that significantly reduces sample volume, minimizes cell loss, and integrates capture, washing, and labelling into a single, automated process, making it highly efficient for rare or limited samples.
Q: What are the typical sample volume requirements for microfluidic cell capture?
A: One of the primary benefits of microfluidics is its ability to operate at extremely low sample volumes, typically in the microliter to nanoliter range. This dramatically reduces the amount of sample needed compared to traditional methods and is particularly valuable when working with precious clinical specimens or limited cell populations.
Q: What materials are commonly used for microfluidic chip fabrication?
A: Microfluidic chips are fabricated from a variety of materials chosen based on the application's requirements for biocompatibility, optical transparency, and chemical resistance. Common materials include polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), glass, and various thermoplastics like polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and cyclic olefin copolymer (COC). Each material offers distinct advantages, such as the gas permeability and flexibility of PDMS or the optical clarity and rigidity of glass.
Q: What are the primary cell capture mechanisms used in microfluidic chips?
A: Microfluidic devices utilize a range of mechanisms to capture target cells. These can be broadly classified into passive and active methods. Passive methods rely on the inherent physical properties of cells, such as size and deformability, to separate them within microchannel geometries (e.g., inertial focusing, deterministic lateral displacement). Active methods employ external forces, such as dielectrophoresis, acoustic waves, or magnetic fields, to manipulate and isolate cells based on their electrical, physical, or surface properties. The choice of mechanism depends on the specific cell type and application.
Featured Services
Feature Products
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CAT No
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Material
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Product Name
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Application
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MFCH-001
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Glass
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Herringbone Microfluidic Chip
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Processing samples and reagents in nucleic acid analysis, blood analysis, immunoassays and point-of-care diagnostics.
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MFMM-0723-JS12
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Glass
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Double Emulsion Droplet Chip
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Our double emulsion microfluidic chip, incorporating localized modifications and a classic flow-focusing structure, is specifically designed to generate stable and uniform double emulsion droplets.
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MFCH-005
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PDMS
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3D Cell Culture Chip-Neuron
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Neuron cell culture and study of axon transport, axon protein synthesis, axon damage/regeneration, signal transduction of axon to somatic signal.
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MFCH-009
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PDMS
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Synvivo-Idealized Co-Culture Network Chips (IMN2 radial)
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SynBBB 3D Blood Brain Barrier Model/SynRAM 3D Inflammation Model/SynTumor 3D Cancer Model/SynTox 3D Toxicology Model
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MFMM1-GJS4
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COC
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BE-Doubleflow Standard
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Studying circulating particles, cell interactions and simple organ on chip system construction.
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MFMM1-GJS6
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COC
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BE-Transflow Custom
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Used to construct cell interface or Air-Liquid interface (ALI) to study more complex culture systems.
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Click here to explore our complete product catalog.
For detailed inquiries regarding our offerings, reach out to our specialists.
References
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Tian, Yishen et al. "Microfluidic Chips: Emerging Technologies for Adoptive Cell Immunotherapy." Micromachines vol. 14,4 877. 19 Apr. 2023, https://doi.org/10.3390/mi14040877
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Rzhevskiy, Alexey S et al. "Rapid and Label-Free Isolation of Tumour Cells from the Urine of Patients with Localised Prostate Cancer Using Inertial Microfluidics." Cancers vol. 12,1 81. 29 Dec. 2019, https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers12010081
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Distributed under Open Access license CC BY 4.0, without modification.
