A Microfluidic-Based Trapping and Positioning Method for Single Cells

Trapping and positioning of single cells has played a major role in various fields of bioengineering, such as cell screening, analysis, induction and pathologic diagnosis, etc. In this work, we report a new non-contact microfluidic-based method for single cells trapping and positioning. A pair of microtubes of same specification is symmetrically placed on opposite sides of the cell. When fluid flowing through microtubes squirts in the same velocity toward the cell, the cell will be immobilized and clamped due to symmetrical fluid pressure generated around it. Feasibility of the reported method is validated by experiments. This method is also capable of trapping and positioning micro particles.