LAUSR

Isolation and analysis of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from the blood of patients at risk of metastatic cancer is a promising approach to improving cancer treatment. However, CTC isolation is difficult due to low CTC abundance and heterogeneity. Previously we reported an ensemble-decision aliquot ranking (eDAR) platform for the rare cell and CTC isolation with high throughput, greater than 90% recovery, and high sensitivity, allowing detection of low surface antigen-expressing cells linked to metastasis. Here we demonstrate a sequential eDAR platform capable of isolating rare cells from whole blood with high purity. This improvement in purity is achieved by using a sequential sorting and flow stretching design in which whole blood is sorted and fluid elements are stretched using herringbone features and the parabolic flow profile being sorted a second time. This platform can be used to collect single CTCs in a multi-well plate for downstream analysis.