Microtechnology for Cell Manipulation and Sorting

Single cells and small clusters of cells can now be handled with microscale and microfluidic tools, and this volume surveys the technologies that make it possible. It opens with an account of traditional cell sorting methods, then introduces the core principles of microfluidics and the devices built on them. Contributing specialists go through the main ways microfluidic systems move and separate biological samples: magnetic, electrical, optical, acoustic, gravitational or sedimentation, inertial, deformability-based, and aqueous two-phase systems.

Each chapter lays out the physics behind one mechanism and points out both its strengths and its limitations. Common device geometries are described alongside, so a reader can judge which design style suits a given application.

The book is aimed at graduate students in biomedical engineering and analytical chemistry, as well as engineers and scientists working in the biotechnology industry.