Microfluidic Tools for Advancing Cancer Research

A special issue of Micromachines (ISSN 2072-666X). This special issue belongs to the section "B4: Point-of-Care Devices".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 October 2021) | Viewed by 10268

Special Issue Editors

Department of Biomedical Engineering, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA
Interests: microfluidics; organ-on-a-chip; cancer microenvironment; immunotherapy; tissue engineering

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Guest Editor
Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Pathology, School of Basic Medical Science, Central South University, Changsha 410013, China
Interests: integrated microfluidics; organs-on-chips; single cell analysis; point-of-care diagnostics; high-throughput drug screening

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Microfluidic technologies have emerged as an enabling tool for accurately monitoring and profiling the complex and heterogeneous cellular and molecular activities of diverse cancer and immune cells at molecular, cellular, and tissue levels. For instance, microfluidic cell sorting, manipulation, and sensing systems have been developed to study immune and cancer cell activities and cytokine kinetics at a spatiotemporal manner. Microfluidic in vitro tumor models featuring the hallmarks of human tumor immunity and pathology are demonstrated to be a useful preclinical platform for modeling and dissecting the cancer–immune system interactions. These strategies help to interrogate the vital roles of the immune system during cancer initiation, progression, and relapse and thus develop immuno-oncology therapeutics to reinvigorate host immunity to fight cancer.

Through this Special Issue on “Microfluidic Tools for Advancing Cancer Research”, we aim to highlight the recent development of microfluidic strategies and platforms and their translational applications, such as immunoengineering, immunoprofiling, mechanoimmunology, cancer diagnostics, and tumor immune niche modeling, in the field of immuno-oncology. Original research papers and review articles regarding the above topics are all welcome.

Dr. Chao Ma
Prof. Dr. Wenming Liu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • Microfluidics
  • Single cell analysis
  • Organ-on-a-Chip
  • Cancer immunotherapy
  • Immunoengineering
  • Mechanoimmunology
  • Biomaterials
  • Immune disorders

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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14 pages, 3189 KiB  
Article
Multi-Vortex Regulation for Efficient Fluid and Particle Manipulation in Ultra-Low Aspect Ratio Curved Microchannels
by Shaofei Shen, Xin Wang and Yanbing Niu
Micromachines 2021, 12(7), 758; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi12070758 - 27 Jun 2021
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2103
Abstract
Inertial microfluidics enables fluid and particle manipulation for biomedical and clinical applications. Herein, we developed a simple semicircular microchannel with an ultra-low aspect ratio to interrogate the unique formations of the helical vortex and Dean vortex by introducing order micro-obstacles. The purposeful and [...] Read more.
Inertial microfluidics enables fluid and particle manipulation for biomedical and clinical applications. Herein, we developed a simple semicircular microchannel with an ultra-low aspect ratio to interrogate the unique formations of the helical vortex and Dean vortex by introducing order micro-obstacles. The purposeful and powerful regulation of dimensional confinement in the microchannel achieved significantly improved fluid mixing effects and fluid and particle manipulation in a high-throughput, highly efficient and easy-to-use way. Together, the results offer insights into the geometry-induced multi-vortex mechanism, which may contribute to simple, passive, continuous operations for biochemical and clinical applications, such as the detection and isolation of circulating tumor cells for cancer diagnostics. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microfluidic Tools for Advancing Cancer Research)
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Review

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22 pages, 7201 KiB  
Review
Microscopic Imaging Methods for Organ-on-a-Chip Platforms
by Bailey C. Buchanan and Jeong-Yeol Yoon
Micromachines 2022, 13(2), 328; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi13020328 - 19 Feb 2022
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 3415
Abstract
Microscopic imaging is essential and the most popular method for in situ monitoring and evaluating the outcome of various organ-on-a-chip (OOC) platforms, including the number and morphology of mammalian cells, gene expression, protein secretions, etc. This review presents an overview of how various [...] Read more.
Microscopic imaging is essential and the most popular method for in situ monitoring and evaluating the outcome of various organ-on-a-chip (OOC) platforms, including the number and morphology of mammalian cells, gene expression, protein secretions, etc. This review presents an overview of how various imaging methods can be used to image organ-on-a-chip platforms, including transillumination imaging (including brightfield, phase-contrast, and holographic optofluidic imaging), fluorescence imaging (including confocal fluorescence and light-sheet fluorescence imaging), and smartphone-based imaging (including microscope attachment-based, quantitative phase, and lens-free imaging). While various microscopic imaging methods have been demonstrated for conventional microfluidic devices, a relatively small number of microscopic imaging methods have been demonstrated for OOC platforms. Some methods have rarely been used to image OOCs. Specific requirements for imaging OOCs will be discussed in comparison to the conventional microfluidic devices and future directions will be introduced in this review. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microfluidic Tools for Advancing Cancer Research)
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15 pages, 2691 KiB  
Review
Microfluidic Systems for Cancer Diagnosis and Applications
by Semra Akgönüllü, Monireh Bakhshpour, Ayşe Kevser Pişkin and Adil Denizli
Micromachines 2021, 12(11), 1349; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi12111349 - 31 Oct 2021
Cited by 27 | Viewed by 3969
Abstract
Microfluidic devices have led to novel biological advances through the improvement of micro systems that can mimic and measure. Microsystems easily handle sub-microliter volumes, obviously with guidance presumably through laminated fluid flows. Microfluidic systems have production methods that do not need expert engineering, [...] Read more.
Microfluidic devices have led to novel biological advances through the improvement of micro systems that can mimic and measure. Microsystems easily handle sub-microliter volumes, obviously with guidance presumably through laminated fluid flows. Microfluidic systems have production methods that do not need expert engineering, away from a centralized laboratory, and can implement basic and point of care analysis, and this has attracted attention to their widespread dissemination and adaptation to specific biological issues. The general use of microfluidic tools in clinical settings can be seen in pregnancy tests and diabetic control, but recently microfluidic platforms have become a key novel technology for cancer diagnostics. Cancer is a heterogeneous group of diseases that needs a multimodal paradigm to diagnose, manage, and treat. Using advanced technologies can enable this, providing better diagnosis and treatment for cancer patients. Microfluidic tools have evolved as a promising tool in the field of cancer such as detection of a single cancer cell, liquid biopsy, drug screening modeling angiogenesis, and metastasis detection. This review summarizes the need for the low-abundant blood and serum cancer diagnosis with microfluidic tools and the progress that has been followed to develop integrated microfluidic platforms for this application in the last few years. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microfluidic Tools for Advancing Cancer Research)
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