Isolation of cells from whole blood using shear-induced diffusion

Extraction of cells of interest directly from whole blood is in high demand, yet extraordinary challenging due to the complex hemodynamics and hemorheology of the sample. Herein, we describe a new microfluidic platform that exploits the intrinsic complex properties of blood for continuous size-selective focusing and separation of cells directly from unprocessed whole blood. The novel system only requires routinely accessible saline solution to form a sandwiched fluid configuration and to initiate a strong effect of shear-induced diffusion of cells, which is coupled with fluid inertia for effective separation. Separations of beads and cells from whole blood have been successfully demonstrated with high efficiency (89.8%) at throughput of 6.75 mL/hr (106–107 cells/s) of whole blood. Rapid isolation of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from peripheral blood sample of hepatocarcinoma patients is also shown as a proof of principle.