| 摘要 |
<p>ASSAYA micro-fluidic device operable to isolate target cells from a biological fluid and a method of isolating target cells from a biological fluid are disclosed. The micro-fluidic device 5 comprises: an inlet operable to receive said biological fluid, said biological fluid comprising target cells and other components; an waste outlet operable to receive at least said other components of said biological fluid; a plurality of parallel arrays of cell isolation wells coupling said inlet with said waste outlet, each parallel array of cell isolation wells supportinga flow of said biological fluid from said inlet to said waste outlet in response to a pressure 10 differential thereacross, each array of cell isolation wells comprising a plurality isolationwells, each isolation well being dimensioned to mechanically trap said target cells therein whilst permitting flow of other components of said biological fluid; and at least one pressure maintenance structure operable to assist in maintaining a predetermined pressure differential across each of said plurality of parallel arrays of cell isolation wells. An increased volume of 15 fluid can be processed using an increased number of traps in order to increase the number of target cells which are retained. By providing the arrays in parallel, the volume of sample that can be processed per unit time may be increased. This may reduce the processing time of a sample whilst increasing the efficiency of target cell isolation. Also, by using pressure maintenance structures, each of the parallel arrays of cell isolation structures may be operated 20 effectively to ensure correct processing of the sample. This helps to ameliorate the problem of increasing the scale of the micro-fluidic device which is difficult because it is difficult to reliably achieve a predictable flow in the presence of samples having wide-varying characteristics. Figure 1</p> |
