Contribution
Medical applications of acoustofluidics
* Presenting author
Abstract:
Acoustic standing wave induced forces acting on particles in microfluidic systems, i.e. acoustophoresis/acoustofluidics, has enabled new means of precise manipulation of biological material in suspension. A major area of development has been within life sciences were cell separation based on intrinsic biophysical cell properties, sample concentration or buffer exchange/cell washing now are becoming standard unit operations in the design of integrated microfluidic sample handling systems. An area that has gained considerable interest is separation and enumeration of circulating tumor cells in blood as a diagnostic and prognostic tool. Recent data on acoustophoresis based CTC as well as CTC cluster enumeration and classification will be presented.More recently the attention within the field of acoustofluidics has turned towards acoustic manipulation of bacteria and cell derived submicron particles, e.g., extra cellular vesicles (EV). EVs are present in all biofluids and hold promise as a source of disease biomarkers. A limiting factor for using EV biomarkers in clinical diagnostics is the extensive sample processing required for isolating and purifying EVs. We have developed a fast, low cost and reliable acoustofluidic method for EV isolation in minute blood plasma samples. The methodology and application to plasma EV isolation and biomarker detection with be discussed.