Continuous Flow Microfluidic Bioparticle Concentrator

Innovative microfluidic technology has enabled massively parallelized and extremely efficient biological and clinical assays. Many biological applications developed and executed with traditional bulk processing techniques have been translated and streamlined through microfluidic processing with the notable exception of sample volume reduction or centrifugation, one of the most widely utilized processes in the biological sciences. We utilize the high-speed phenomenon known as inertial focusing combined with hydraulic resistance controlled multiplexed micro-siphoning allowing for the continuous concentration of suspended cells into pre-determined volumes up to more than 400 times smaller than the input with a yield routinely above 95% at a throughput of 240 ml/hour. Highlighted applications are presented for how the technology can be successfully used for live animal imaging studies, in a system to increase the efficient use of small clinical samples, and finally, as a means of macro-to-micro interfacing allowing large samples to be directly coupled to a variety of powerful microfluidic technologies. From point-of-care diagnostics 1 to massively parallelized arrays for gene expression detection 2 , microfluidic technologies are revolutionizing science and medicine. Due to the widespread study of physical phenomena in microfluidics and especially within biological systems, progress is being made towards accelerating drug discovery 3 , personalizing medical treatments 4,5 and improving basic scientific studies of cells using the well-controlled experimental conditions on the scale of single cells 6,7 . Moreover, microfluidic devices are now being used in the processing of biological samples; for example, there are now microfluidic devices for isolating rare cells from blood replacing bulk isolation methods 8–11 . There are even new means of sorting cells on the microscale depending on specific secreted factors 12 .