A New Cost-effective, High-throughput, High-performance Microfluidic Fluorescence-Activated Cell Sorter

Professor Tsia, Kevin Kin Man   (Principal Investigator (PI))

24

2024-01-01

4910500

A New Cost-effective, High-throughput, High-performance Microfluidic Fluorescence-Activated Cell Sorter

Cost-effective, High-throughput, High-performance, Microfluidic Fluorescence-Activated, Cell Sorter

Electrical and Electronic Engineering

ITS/318/22FP

Innovation and Technology Support Programme

2023

On-going

This project aims to reinvent fluorescence-activated cell sorter (FACS) to meet thestaggering demand for a cost-effective and high-performance single-cell sorting in frontierbiological research and next-generation precision medicine. Bypassing the use of thebulky and sophisticated fluid controlling system in the conventional FACS, this project willdevelop a new microfluidic cell sorter (or microsorter) to maximize the sorting throughput,the sorting purity and the cell viability all at once - a long standing technical challengecommon in FACS. This microsorter harnesses a novel inertial microfluidic mechanism tostrategically enable both high-precision single-stream 3D cell ordering in the upstreamand high-throughput multi-way single-cell sorting in the downstream - all in a single chipdriven only by a single pressure source, without resorting to the common extra sheathfluid. Furthermore, as the overall cell ordering and sorting mechanisms are cell sizeinsensitive, this microsorter will favor sorting large, complex, heterogeneous cellpopulations that was inconceivable in the state-of-the-art single-cell sorting operation.Integrating the microsorter with off-the-shelf optics and electronic components, we willdevelop and test an affordable prototype of high-throughput and high-precisionmicrofluidic FACS for exploring its potential clinical applications in rare cell detection incancer treatment monitoring. We anticipate that this one-of-its-kind cell sorting platformcan be readily disseminated to a broad community of biologists and clinicians. In addition,the reduced manufacturing and maintenance costs and footprint of our FACS will alsocritically accelerate its translational pathway toward the markets, especially in biomedical/clinical instrumentation.