Inertial Microfluidics: Inertial Manipulation and Transfer of Microparticles Across Laminar Fluid Streams (Small 17/2012)

Rapid transfer of white blood cells from one solution to another is achieved by D. Di Carlo and co-workers by manipulating inertial lift forces present in finite Reynolds number confined flows. A general strategy for continuous-flow exchange of solutions around cells or particles, presented on page 2757, is evaluated for its ability to automate and streamline procedures common to cell biology and flow cytometry. It can be scaled for range of microparticle sizes and robustly integrated into microfluidic systems, and it promises to offer new capabilities for single-cell analysis, solid-phase reaction control, and biophysics.