Title:  Negative Enrichment of Circulating Tumor Cells Via 3D Printed Microfluidic Device

Committee: 

Dr. Sarioglu, Advisor    

Dr. Emelianov, Chair

Dr. Frazier

Abstract:

The objective of the proposed research is to develop a 3D printed microfluidic device for the enrichment of circulating tumor cells. Microfluidic devices that utilize immunoaffinity-based leukocyte depletion offers high specificity and unbiased circulating tumor cell enrichment. In this proposal, I will present a 3D printed monolithic device with stacked layers of immunodepletion channels followed by a microfiltration section to deplete leukocytes directly from whole blood and retrieve the cancer cells, respectively. In the proposed work, I will focus on the development of a custom filter membrane to further deplete the leukocytes and increase the purity of the enriched circulating tumor cells while looking into different mechanical cell sorting mechanism that can be implemented in the upstream of the device to further increase the depletion rate of the leukocyte in the immunodepletion channels.