Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have been widely considered as novel biomarkers for the clinical diagnosis of cancer. CTCs are the cells detached from the parent tumors and shed into the blood stream to initiate tumor metastasis. Although CTCs are rare, their detection in one’s blood sample is essential for cancer early diagnosis and for starting the treatment procedure. Here, we introduce a novel method for trapping CTCs using dielectrophores, which effectively employs pores of a replaceable porous membrane as CTC traps. The applied dielectrophoretic force efficiently traps and holds CTCs in a stable position and further enables us to perform various on-chip analysis with them. First, using finite element method, the performance of the system was simulated for different physical conditions. Then, the chip was fabricated and its trapping performance was experimentally validated. Cells were entered into the microchannel and trapped in the pores of a polydimethylsiloxane membrane. The proposed microfluidic chip is capable of detecting rare cells in a large cell population.

中文翻译：

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一种基于介电泳的微流控芯片，用于使用多孔膜捕获循环肿瘤细胞

循环肿瘤细胞 (CTC) 已被广泛认为是癌症临床诊断的新型生物标志物。CTC 是从母体肿瘤中分离出来并进入血流以启动肿瘤转移的细胞。尽管 CTC 很少见，但它们在血液样本中的检测对于癌症早期诊断和开始治疗程序至关重要。在这里，我们介绍了一种使用介电泳捕获 CTC 的新方法，该方法有效地利用可更换多孔膜的孔作为 CTC 陷阱。施加的介电泳力有效地将 CTC 捕获并保持在稳定的位置，进一步使我们能够使用它们进行各种片上分析。首先，使用有限元方法，对不同物理条件下的系统性能进行了模拟。然后，该芯片已制作完成，并对其捕获性能进行了实验验证。细胞进入微通道并被困在聚二甲基硅氧烷膜的孔中。所提出的微流控芯片能够检测大量细胞群中的稀有细胞。