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 the challenge of isolating specific cell populations from complex biological samples? Is low throughput, high cost, or potential cell damage from traditional methods hindering your progress in drug discovery or diagnostics? Creative Biolabs' Cell Separation and Sorting Microfluidic Chip Development Service helps you overcome these obstacles by providing a custom, high-efficiency, and gentle solution for isolating target cells. We leverage advanced microfabrication and fluid dynamics to ensure you obtain the purest cell populations for your most critical downstream applications.
Contact our team to get an inquiry now!
Background
Cell separation and sorting are fundamental techniques in cell biology, diagnostics, and therapeutics. Traditional methods, such as Fluorescence-Activated Cell Sorting (FACS), are effective but often suffer from high cost, bulky equipment, and potential cell damage due to high shear forces or labeling. Microfluidic-based approaches have emerged as a powerful alternative, leveraging the precise manipulation of fluids at the microscale to achieve highly efficient and gentle cell isolation.
Microfluidic chips facilitate cell separation based on a cell's intrinsic properties, such as size, shape, deformability, density, or electrical characteristics. These methods are broadly categorized into active and passive separation. Active methods utilize external forces—such as electric fields (dielectrophoresis), acoustic waves (acoustophoresis), or magnetic fields (magnetophoresis)—to manipulate cells. Passive methods, on the other hand, rely on the inherent hydrodynamics and chip geometry to sort cells without external fields. Examples include deterministic lateral displacement (DLD) and inertial focusing. This miniaturization and integration of sorting principles into a single device enable a more efficient, cost-effective, and gentle process, which is why it is revolutionizing the field.
Fig.2 DLD cell sorting.1,3
Applications
The applications of microfluidic cell separation and sorting are vast and continue to expand. Our custom chips can be applied to:
Cancer Research
Isolation of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from patient blood for early diagnosis, treatment monitoring, and personalized medicine.
Individual Cell Analysis
Preparation of highly purified individual cell suspensions for individual cell genomics, proteomics, and transcriptomics.
Regenerative Medicine
Efficient isolation and enrichment of stem cells from various sources for tissue engineering and cell therapy.
Immunology
Separation of specific immune cell subpopulations for research into disease mechanisms and the development of immunotherapies.
Diagnostics
Development of point-of-care diagnostic devices for rapid, on-site detection of biomarkers and pathogens.
Microbiology
Isolation of microorganisms from complex samples for research and diagnostic purposes.
What We Can Offer
Creative Biolabs provides a comprehensive suite of services to meet all your microfluidic needs.
We design and produce microfluidic chips tailored to your specific application and cell type, ensuring optimal performance and compatibility.
A selection of off-the-shelf microfluidic chips for common applications, allowing for rapid prototyping and immediate use.
From initial design consultation and feasibility studies to prototyping, validation, and final production, we offer an integrated, seamless service.
Leverage our specialized benefits—Request a quotation today
Workflow
Why Choose Us?
Creative Biolabs' expertise in microfluidic chip development is backed by a commitment to quality, innovation, and client satisfaction. Our unique advantages distinguish us from conventional methods and other providers.
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Precision and Efficiency: Our microfluidic chips enable the isolation of cell populations with unparalleled purity and recovery rates, often exceeding 95%.
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Gentle Cell Handling: We utilize label-free, low-shear force separation methods that preserve cell viability and function, critical for sensitive downstream applications like individual cell genomics or cell therapy.
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Customization: Unlike off-the-shelf solutions, our service provides a chip custom-designed to the specific characteristics of your cells and sample type, ensuring optimal performance.
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High-Throughput and Automation Potential: Our chips can be designed for high-throughput processing, and our systems are compatible with laboratory automation, significantly reducing manual labor and processing time.
Published Data
Fig.3 Schematic of a microfluidic chip with a nanofiber scaffold.2,3,
A study on the use of spiral microfluidic technology for enriching circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from patients with head and neck cancers demonstrated the effectiveness of this label-free approach. The experiment was designed to overcome the limitations of marker-based systems, which can miss a significant number of CTCs due to their heterogeneous expression of surface markers. By leveraging inertial focusing and dean forces within the spiral channel, the device successfully separated larger CTCs from the much more abundant smaller white blood cells. This method allowed for a high-efficiency isolation of CTCs based on their physical properties, enabling the capture of a broader range of cancer cells. The results validate microfluidic technology as a robust and powerful tool for isolating rare cell populations, providing a superior alternative for clinical research and diagnostics where cell viability and integrity are paramount.
FAQs
Q: What factors determine the optimal microfluidic separation method?
A: The choice of a microfluidic separation principle depends on the intrinsic physical properties of the target cells, such as their size, deformability, and density. It also depends on the specific requirements of your experiment, including the desired purity, recovery rate, and whether you need to maintain cell viability for downstream applications. Our team of experts can guide you in selecting the most effective approach for your project.
Q: How do microfluidic chips preserve cell viability compared to traditional sorting methods?
A: Microfluidic chips minimize the shear stress and hydrodynamic forces that can damage cells. Unlike flow cytometry (FACS), which can expose cells to high pressures, microfluidic devices operate with lower flow rates in a confined microenvironment. Additionally, many microfluidic techniques are label-free, eliminating the need for fluorescent antibodies or magnetic beads that might interfere with cell function or viability.
Q: Are microfluidic platforms suitable for both small-scale and high-throughput applications?
A: Yes, the scalability of microfluidic platforms is a key advantage. While a single chip can be used for small-volume, highly precise research, the technology can also be parallelized and integrated into automated systems for high-throughput screening and large-scale sample processing. This allows for a seamless transition from basic research to translational studies and production.
Q: How do microfluidic solutions compare to established cell sorting technologies like FACS?
A: Microfluidic approaches offer a complementary and often superior alternative to traditional methods. They typically require smaller sample volumes and less expensive reagents. Unlike FACS, which can be a complex and expensive system to operate and maintain, microfluidic chips offer a simpler, more portable, and more cost-effective solution. They also provide greater flexibility for customization based on specific cell types and research goals.
Q: How can microfluidic technologies address the challenge of isolating cells with similar properties?
A: We address this challenge by leveraging a combination of separation principles. For example, a multi-stage microfluidic device can first separate cells based on size and then apply a secondary force, such as dielectrophoresis, to further discriminate based on intrinsic electrical properties. This multi-modal approach enables the high-resolution separation of cell populations that would be difficult to distinguish using a single parameter.
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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Jiang, Zhao, et al. "An integrated microfluidic device for rapid and high-sensitivity analysis of circulating tumor cells." Scientific Reports 7 (2015): 42612. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep42612
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Kulasinghe, Arutha, et al. "Enrichment of circulating head and neck tumour cells using spiral microfluidic technology." Scientific reports 7.1 (2017): 42517. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep42517
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Distributed under Open Access license CC BY 4.0, without modification.
