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Inertial Microfluidics-Based Cell Sorting

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Abstract

Inertial microfluidics has attracted significant attention in recent years due to its superior benefits of high throughput, precise control, simplicity, and low cost. Many inertial microfluidic applications have been demonstrated for physiological sample processing, clinical diagnostics, and environmental monitoring and cleanup. In this review, we discuss the fundamental mechanisms and principles of inertial migration and Dean flow, which are the basis of inertial microfluidics, and provide basic scaling laws for designing the inertial microfluidic devices. This will allow end-users with diverse backgrounds to more easily take advantage of the inertial microfluidic technologies in a wide range of applications. A variety of recent applications are also classified according to the structure of the microchannel: straight channels and curved channels. Finally, several future perspectives of employing fluid inertia in microfluidic-based cell sorting are discussed. Inertial microfluidics is still expected to be promising in the near future with more novel designs using various shapes of cross section, sheath flows with different viscosities, or technologies that target micron and submicron bioparticles.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), 291 Daehak-ro, Daejeon, 34141, Republic of Korea

    Ga-Yeong Kim & Jong-In Han

  2. Department of Bio and Brain Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), 291 Daehak-ro, Daejeon, 34141, Republic of Korea

    Je-Kyun Park

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  1. Ga-Yeong Kim
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  2. Jong-In Han
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  3. Je-Kyun Park
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Correspondence to Je-Kyun Park.

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Kim, GY., Han, JI. & Park, JK. Inertial Microfluidics-Based Cell Sorting. BioChip J 12, 257–267 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13206-018-2401-2

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