Microfluidic Cell Sorting and Separation Technology

Cell sorting and separation is widely used as a critical first step for research and clinical applications where it is needed to isolate individual cell types from a heterogeneous biological sample. In this introductory chapter, we review conventional cell sorting and separation techniques and their applications. To meet the complex and diversifying needs for cell sorting, many microfluidic techniques based on diverse sorting criteria have been developed recently. Microfluidics has many advantages including variety of sorting principles, precise cell manipulation capability, and combination with downstream analysis. We highlight microfluidic cell sorting and separation techniques and their principles, and establish terminologies and metrics used in their analysis. Lastly, we provide perspective of potential future applications or directions for microtechnologies.