Cancer Diagnostics: A Trachea‐Inspired Bifurcated Microfilter Capturing Viable Circulating Tumor Cells via Altered Biophysical Properties as Measured by Atomic Force Microscopy (Small 18/2013)

In isolating circulating tumor cells (CTCs), which exist in extremely low concentrations in the blood, current methods have been limited by a trade-off between recovery rate and purity. To overcome this challenge, M. S. Kim, S. S. Lee, J.-G. Lee, and co-workers present on page 3103 a sized-based filtration method that combines two strategies: (1) using specific binding of solid microbeads conjugated with anti-EpCAM antibodies to enhance the discrimination of CTCs from other blood constituents (mainly white blood cells) along with (2) a novel bio-inspired bifurcated microfilter that minimizes fluidic stresses on these cells, once captured. The method approaches maximal recovery rate and purity, while allowing viable CTCs to be isolated, enabling not only their enumeration but also further molecular and cellular evaluation.