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for Microfluidic Devices for Cell Capture, Sorting, and Culture
===Brian Kirby, Ph.D.===

==Microfluidic Devices for Cell Capture, Sorting, and Culture==

This talk presents three projects in which microfluidic technologies are implemented to achieve novel analysis of cells.  In the first project, we demonstrate capture of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from peripheral blood of prostate cancer patients with the highest one-step purities and efficiencies reported to date.  This is achieved using a technique we call Geometrically Enhanced Differential Immunocapture, which combines highly specific prostate cell antibodies with a microfluidic geometry that enhances CTC-substrate collisions while suppressing surface interactions with haematological cells.  Capture devices are currently being implemented to study androgen receptor trafficking and the refractory response to hormone therapy in prostate cancer, with a goal of developing personalized chemotherapeutics.  In the second project, we demonstrate sorting of subpopulations of Mycobacterium based on membrane response to antibiotics using dielectrophoretic sorting in coherently patterned plastic microdevices.  This work serves as a screen that bridges the gap between biological tools (random transposon mutagenesis) and biological inquiry (use of mutant libraries to understand antibiotic resistance in tuberculosis).  Finally, we discuss axonal trafficking in rat hippocampal neurons and the use of microfluidic devices for spatiotemporally resolved solute delivery and study of solute effects on mitochondrial transport.

Brian J. Kirby currently directs the Micro/Nanofluidics Laboratory in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University. He joined the School in August 2004. Previous to that, he was a Senior Member of the Technical Staff in the Microfluidics Department at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California, where he worked from 2001-2004 on microfluidic systems, with applications primarily to counterbioterrorism.

Professor Kirby is the current Chair-elect (with Jean-Louis Viovy, Institut Curie) of the 2011 Gordon Research Conference on Microfluidics.  Professor Kirby has received a 2002 R&D Top 100 Invention award for work on microvalves for high pressure-fluid control, a 2004 JD Watson Investigator award for microdevices for protein production and analysis, and a 2007 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) award for nanoscale electrokinetics and bioagent detection.
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