A Microfluidic System for the Capture and Expansion of Metastatic Cancer Cells

Abstract

Understanding metastatic cancer cells is important to increasing the cancer survival rate. Microfluidic fabrication allows us to create diminutive environments to perform experiments on individual cells. This project was aimed at developing a design for a microfluidic device that has the potential to separate metastatic and non-metastatic cancer cells via chemotaxis through a hydrogel basement membrane mimic. The team’s device allows for the isolation and expansion of metastatic cancer cells within micron-sized wells for further analysis