Robot-assisted Cell Sorting/isolation with Integrated Optical Tweezer and Microfluidic Chip Technologies

Sorting and isolation of specific target cells from a large mixed population is an important process in many cell-based biomedical applications. In this proposed research, we will develop a novel solution that can be effectively used for cell sorting and isolation by utilizing technologies of robotics manipulation, optical tweezers and microfluidic chip design. A robot-assisted microfluidic system with optical tweezers will be developed for cell harvesting and sorting. Image processing technology will be developed to detect the target cells based on cell features such as size or labelled fluorescence. The microfluidic chip will be designed and fabricated, with investigation of the behavior of the fluid flow within the micro-channel through simulation studies. Finally, experiments will be performed on live cells to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approaches. The significance of this research lies in successful achievement of high throughput, purity and recover rate in cell sorting.