MagPure Chip: a microfluidic device to isolate viable circulating tumor cells

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) could be interesting biomarkers to assess the severity of cancer, monitor the evolution of the disease in real-time, and guide therapeutic strategies. However, their study is challenging as they are present in an ultra-low concentration in blood, at about 1 ppm to the most. Besides, CTCs share common physical properties with some white blood cells (WBCs), which limits the performances of physical-based isolation. On the other hand, sorting CTCs from biological surface markers does not allow for obtaining sufficiently high throughput. In this context, we have developed an immunomagnetic microfluidic device, named MagPure Chip, to purify in CTC a pre-treated blood sample. Here we show that this device preserves the integrity of the recovered CTC and the relatively fast operation is compatible with the timescale of clinical workflows.