Described herein are microfluidic devices and methods that can greatly improve cell quality, streamline workflows, and lower costs. Applications include research and clinical diagnostics in cancer, infectious disease, and inflammatory disease, among other disease areas.

Aspects of the present disclosure describe systems, methods, and structures for acoustic wave-based separation of particulates in a fluidic flow. Illustrative systems, methods, and structures according to aspects of the present disclosure may advantageously provide for the continuous, label-free, non-invasive separation of the particulates that include—among other types—difficult-to-separate biological particulates and in particular those in blood including circulating tumor cells and micro-blood-borne particles and other subgroups of extracellular vesicles including nanoscale exosomes.

The present application relates to a microfluidic system and its method for use for the separation of motile sperm from immotile sperm or motile bacteria from immotile bacteria. The system includes a housing having a first end, and a second end, with a passage connecting the first and second ends. There is an inlet at the first end of the housing for charging fluids into the passage and an outlet at the second end of said housing for discharging fluids from the passage. There are one or more corrals within the passage, each of the corrals including a closed side and a partially open side. The closed side of the corrals is closer to the first end than the partially open side, with the closed side and partially open side defining between them a confinement region suitable for retaining motile sperm or motile bacteria.

Modular active surface devices for microfluidic systems and methods of making same is disclosed. In one example, the modular active surface device includes an active surface layer mounted atop an active surface substrate, a mask mounted atop the active surface layer wherein the mask defines the area, height, and volume of the reaction chamber, and a substrate mounted atop the mask wherein the substrate provides the facing surface to the active surface layer. In other examples, both facing surfaces of the reaction chamber include active surface layers. Further, the modular active surface device can include other layers, such as, but not limited to, adhesive layers, stiffening layers for facilitating handling, and peel-off sealing layers. Further, a large-scale manufacturing method is provided of mass-producing the modular active surface devices. Further, a method is provided of using a plasma bonding process to bond the active surface layer to the active surface substrate.

The application relates to microfluidic apparatus and methods of use thereof. Provided in one example is a microfluidic device comprising: a first fluidic input and a second fluidic input; and a fluidic intersection channel to receive fluid from the first fluidic input and the second fluidic input, wherein the fluidic intersection channel opens into a first mixing chamber on an upper region of a first side of the first mixing chamber, wherein the first mixing chamber has a length, a width, and a depth, wherein the depth is greater than about 1.5 times a depth of the fluidic intersection channel; an outlet channel on an upper region of a second side of the first mixing chamber, wherein the outlet channel has a depth that is less than the depth of the first mixing chamber, and wherein an opening of the outlet channel is offset along a width of the second side of the first mixing chamber relative to the fluidic intersection.

A magnetic separation device has a membrane having a plurality of pores, a magnetically soft material layer disposed on the membrane, and a passivation layer disposed on the magnetically soft material layer. The magnetic separation device may be part of a microfluidic device having a lateral flow channel and a vertical flow magnetic separation filter. The magnetic separation device may be used to separate magnetically tagged particles, such as cells.

An automatic nucleic acid extraction cartridge and an automatic nucleic acid extraction system including the same are described herein. The cartridge having a housing that includes a sample port, a cell processing chamber, a wash fluid chamber, a filter assembly comprising a filter member, and a diverter valve having a first and a second reversibly sealable output, wherein each of the sample port and the cell processing chamber, the cell processing chamber and the filter assembly, and the wash fluid chamber and the filter assembly are in one-way fluid communication, and the filter assembly is in fluid communication with the diverter valve and (i) a waste conduit when the diverter valve is biased to the first reversibly sealable output and (ii) a pathogen nucleic acid conduit when the diverter valve is biased to the second reversibly sealable output. The present disclosure further describes methods of using the same.

Provided is an apparatus for generating a microfluidic concentration field, the apparatus including: a substrate; a base film disposed on the substrate; a microchannel, which is formed in a space between the substrate and the base film and through which a fluid flows; a through passage, which communicates with the microchannel and is configured to pass through the base film; and a membrane, which is formed at a portion where the microchannel and the through passage communicate with each other and allows the fluid flowing along the microchannel and the through passage or a material flowing together with the fluid to selectively pass through the membrane, wherein a concentration field is formed between the fluid of the through passage and the fluid of the microchannel by the membrane.

A microfluidic chip comprises: a first unit which has a channel for a cell sample to pass through and is configured to separate circulating tumor cells in the cell sample; a second unit, a front end of which communicates with a tail end of the first unit, and the second unit is configured to capture single cells from the separated circulating tumor cells and subject the captured single cells to closed lysis; and a gel layer which is provided at the second unit. The microfluidic chip is configured to implement the binding of a protein molecule of the single cell with an antibody in the gel layer after the single cell is lysed. A cell separation and western blotting method using the microfluidic chip comprises: lysing circulating tumor cells, capturing, and implementing the binding of a lysate with an antibody. A manufacture method of the microfluidic chip, comprises: manufacturing a first interlayer and a separation unit; manufacturing a second interlayer and pasting the second interlayer on a basal layer, and manufacturing a single-cell capture unit; and bonding the first interlayer with the separation unit and the second interlayer with the single-cell capture unit.

A biochip for the integration of all steps in a complex process from the insertion of a sample to the generation of a result, performed without operator intervention includes microfluidic and macrofluidic features that are acted on by instrument subsystems in a series of scripted processing steps. Methods for fabricating these complex biochips of high feature density by injection molding are also provided.