LAUSR

Current microfluidic cell separation instruments are commonly bulky, expensive, and inconvenient for use in resource-limited environments. Herein, we developed a low-cost, portable, battery-driven microfluidic cell separation instrument by integrating a microfluidic separator, a low-cost gas-driven flow system, and a flow resistance module. The plug-and-play cell separator enabled by inertial microfluidics was used to realize the label-free solid/solid or solid/liquid separation by switching the operational modes of cell separation and enrichment. To increase the instrument portability, an all-in-one flow resistance module integrated with three different polymer film flow resistance chips was designed to stabilize the gas flow generated by the miniaturized diaphragm pump for low-cost fluid injection under different operational modes. After successfully constructing our instrument, the performance under the separation mode was tested using the blood samples spiked with three different tumor cells. Then, the enrichment mode was performed to concentrate the target cells after separation and thus reduce the sample volume. Excellent separation and enrichment performances were achieved at a high throughput. Our portable microfluidic cell separation instrument offers the advantages of simple operation, small footprint, lightweight, and untethered battery drivenness and thus holds the potential for one-stop cell preparation in resource-limited environments.