Enumerating and analyzing circulating tumor cells (CTCs)-cells that have been shed from primary solid tumors-can potentially be used to determine patient prognosis and track the progression of disease. There is a great challenge to create an effective platform that can isolate these cells, as they are extremely rare: only 1-10 CTCs are present in a 7.5mL of a cancer patient's peripheral blood. We have developed a novel microfluidic system that can isolate CTC populations label free. Our system consists of a multistage separator that employs inertial migration to sort cells based on size. We demonstrate the feasibility of our device by sorting colloids that are comparable in size to red blood cells (RBCs) and CTCs.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.2178613 | DOI Listing |
Anal Chem
January 2025
Nanophotonic Systems Laboratory, Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, ETH Zurich, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland.
Droplet-based microfluidics is a powerful tool for high-throughput analysis of liquid samples with significant applications in biomedicine and biochemistry. Nevertheless, extracting content-rich information from single picolitre-sized droplets at high throughputs remains challenging due to the weak signals associated with these small volumes. Overcoming this limitation would be transformative for fields that rely on high-throughput screening, enabling broader multiparametric analysis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFActa Naturae
January 2024
Shemyakin-Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 117997 Russian Federation.
The growing incidence of infections caused by antibiotic-resistant strains of pathogens is one of the key challenges of the 21 century. The development of novel technological platforms based on single-cell analysis of antibacterial activity at the whole-microbiome level enables the transition to massive screening of antimicrobial agents with various mechanisms of action. The microbiome of wild animals remains largely underinvestigated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFActa Naturae
January 2024
Shemyakin-Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Moscow, 117997 Russian Federation.
Despite the achievements brought about by high-throughput screening technologies, there is still a lack of effective platforms to be used to search for new antimicrobial drugs. The antimicrobial activity of compounds continues, for the most part, to be assessed mainly using pathogen cultures, a situation which does not make easy a detailed investigation of the molecular mechanisms underlying host-pathogen interactions. testing of promising compounds using chordate models is labor-intensive and expensive and, therefore, is used in preclinical studies of selected drug candidates but not in primary screening.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Mater Chem B
January 2025
State Key Laboratory of Oral Disease & National Center for Stomatology & National Clinical Center for Oral Diseases & Department of Operative Dentistry and Endodontics, West China Hospital of Stomatology, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China.
Bone defects are a prevalent issue resulting from various factors, such as trauma, degenerative diseases, congenital disabilities, and the surgical removal of tumors. Current methods for bone regeneration have limitations. In this context, the fusion of tissue engineering and microfluidics has emerged as a promising strategy in the field of bone regeneration.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEven after folding, proteins transiently sample unfolded or partially unfolded intermediates, and these species are often at risk of irreversible alteration ( via proteolysis, aggregation, or post-translational modification). Kinetic stability, in addition to thermodynamic stability, can directly impact protein lifetime, abundance, and the formation of alternative, sometimes disruptive states. However, we have very few measurements of protein unfolding rates or how mutations alter these rates, largely due to technical challenges associated with their measurement.
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