Prof. Rohit Karnik
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Microfluidics and Nanofluidics Research Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
April 9, 2013 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room
Host: Luke Lee
Multiple sample-processing steps present a challenge for the development of low-complexity devices for laboratory or point-of-care separation and analysis of cells. In this presentation, I will discuss a new approach that can directly separate, enrich, or analyze cells with minimal or no sample processing requirements. We show that transient cell-surface adhesive molecular interactions can exert forces on the cells that can direct the trajectories of cells flowing through microfluidic devices. Such interactions occur in cell rolling, a physiological phenomenon involved in cell trafficking where transient molecular bonds are continuously formed and broken as the cell rolls on a surface under the action of hydrodynamic forces. Using this approach, we demonstrate separation of cells with high purity and efficiency in parallel microchannel devices, and direct separation of neutrophils from blood with ultrahigh enrichment in a neutrophil activation-dependent manner. We extend this approach to controllably contact mesenchymal stem cells with receptor-coated surfaces to quantify cell adhesion behavior by visualization of their trajectories in a "cell adhesion cytometer," which can track changes in the cell phenotype. The results demonstrate the potential of the emerging technology of using transient cell-surface molecular interactions to directly separate and analyze cells for point-of-care diagnostics, isolation of rare cells, quality control of stem cells, and other applications.
web.mit.edu/karnik/www/home.htm ; meche.mit.edu/people/index.html?id=279
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