Recent advances in microfluidic single-cell analysis and its applications in drug development

Cellular heterogeneity is prevalent in all cell populations. Single-cell analysis (SCA) could unveil the heterogeneity and thus gain unique insights into complex biological processes. SCA has been widely used in various fields of life sciences and medicine, providing discerning information inaccessible by conventional population-based experiments. In drug development, SCA shows attractive power in revealing the origin of drug resistance, identifying new targets for drug intervention, accelerating the process of drug screening, as well as predicting drug response. In this article, we summarize the major advances in SCA technology and its applications for drug development over the past five years, and discuss the challenges and future research opportunities in this field.