This week, the speakers for the IMG Seminar are:
- Mark Yanchisin (EH&S) on Non-traditional safety
- Kangfu Chen (Dr. Fan's group) on A filter array regulated microflow (FARM) chip for circulating tumor cell isolation
A filter array regulated microflow (FARM) chip for circulating tumor cell isolation . Circulating tumor cells (CTC) are cancer cells in the circulating system shredded from the primary tumor. CTCs have been considered as important biomarkers for early detection of metastasis, therapy monitoring and disease prognosis. However, the rarity of CTCs in the blood (tens of CTCs per mL blood) remains a technological barricade. We developed a Filter Array Regulated Microflow (FARM) chip combing filtration and immunoaffinity based CTC capture. The FARM chip is able to isolate CTCs with low deformability or high antibody expression level. Even more deformable CTCs with lower antibody expression are likely to be captured if the two components combination exceeds the CTC capture threshold. Overall, this method is capable of isolating, detecting and enumerating CTCs with high throughput and superb efficiency.