Hydrodynamics and magnetophoresis based hybrid blood cell sorter

The classification of cells is important for medical diagnosis and medicine research. A micro-scale analysis system for blood allows immediate diagnosis, regardless of time or location. Rapid handling of target cells is required for accurate analysis because WBCs are easily altered during cell separation. In previous papers, the reported sample solution flow rates for cell sorting were on the order of tens of micro-liters per minute. This paper proposes a hybrid cell sorter (HCS) that combines hydrodynamics and magnetophoresis. The HCS is proposed for improving the classification efficiency of a virtual impactor-based cell sorter. Also, its performance has been evaluated in the classification of blood cells. The overall classification efficiency of red blood cells (RBCs) increased from 68.26% to 88.63% when using the proposed hybrid scheme. Experimental results show that the classification efficiency of blood cells could be modulated and enhanced by magnetophoresis.