Dielectrophoretic Isolation and Enrichment of Low Abundant Particles

Insulator based dielectrophoresis (iDEP) is a leading microfluidic technique employed for the concentration, separation and enrichment of samples containing cells. Insulator-based DEP microchannels or lab-on-a-chip systems have proved to be useful and beneficial in areas such as food/water safety, clinical diagnostics, and environmental monitoring, since they yield results rapidly. There is a need to analyze whether these systems are selective enough to detect and enrich cells or other particles that are present in low abundance. A possible application where selectivity is critical is the detection of cancer/anomalous cells in blood samples, since these cells are present in very low concentrations compared to red blood cells and other particles.  The present study will examine how selective these systems are using a variety of particle size mixtures and concentration ratios, in order to detect low abundant biological cells and particles.