Nature sub-journal: A new method to make metastatic cancer detection easier and faster

Cancers spread through the bloodstream to other organs through circulating tumor cells (ctcs), making them nearly impossible to trac.

When a tumor begins to metastasize, it transfers cells into the bloo.

CTCs have proven difficult to study, let alone trea.

"That's why engineers like me are interested in this, because we're really good at making sensors, or small devices that do sensitive analysis," said Fatih Sarioglu, associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineerin.

Cluster-Well

Sarioglu's lab created a new chip called Cluster-Well that combines the precision of a microfluidic chip with the efficiency of membrane filtration to find CTC cluster.

"As a designer, a microfluidic chip gives you more control to ask any question you want to ask these cells," Sarioglu sai.

To rapidly process clinically relevant blood volumes, the researchers relied on membrane filtration technology to make chip operations more scalabl.

For researchers, utility is as important as functionalit.

"We actually only created the traps we needed to identify the microfluidic chip cluster, and the rest was just a standard filter holder," Sarioglu sai.

Analysis of patient tumor cell clusters

The researchers, in collaboration with Emory Hospital and Northside Hospital, used the chip to screen blood samples from patients with ovarian or prostate cance.

The unique design of the chip means that CTC clusters are filtered in the microwells and can then be used for further analysi.

"It's hard to find these galaxy clusters," Sarioglu sai.

article title

High throughput, label-free isolation of circulating tumor cell clusters in meshed microwells