Chip-Like Device Could Enable Efficient Single-Cell Analysis

By Joel Lindsey

A team of researchers from Duke University and South Korea’s Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST) has created a new device that operates like a microchip to sort and store individual cells —  a development that could make new forms of medical-related research and treatment possible.

“Most experiments grind up a bunch of cells and analyze genetic activity by averaging the population of an entire tissue rather than looking at the differences between single cells within that population,” Benjamin Yellen, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering, said in a press release published recently on Duke’s website. “That’s like taking the eye color of everyone in a room and finding that the average color is grey, when not a single person in the room has grey eyes.”

According to Yellen, there is a “need to be able to study individual cells to understand and appreciate small but significant differences in a similar population.”

To make this possible, Yellen and the rest of the research team etched tiny electromagnetic patterns onto a small slide. These patterns essentially created a series of magnetic tracks  composed of a series of tiny switches, transistors, and diodes.

Researchers were then able to use the electromagnetic components and built-in tracks of the slide to guide individual cells — tagged with magnetic nanoparticles — through a thin liquid film and into specific storage compartments.

“The result is an integrated circuit that controls small magnetic objects much like the way electrons are controlled on computer chips,” the press release explained.

For Yellen and other researchers involved with the project, the ability to sort and store individual cells could open up more effective ways to study and treat certain types of diseases, such as HIV or cancer. In particular, researchers claim that the new device could make it possible to identify and analyze individual cells that may resist drug treatment or that might remain dormant yet dangerous if left untreated.

Details regarding early tests of the new device have been outlined in an article published recently in the journal Nature Communications.

Image Credit: Duke University