Sickle Cell Disease Biofluid Chip Technology (SCD BioChip)

Novel biofluidic chip technology can investigate surface characteristics that are typically measured with conventional techniques, such as fluorescent activated cell sorting (FACS), immunohistochemistry, or microscopic imaging methods. In FACS, cells of interest are isolated, extensively processed, incubated with a fluorescent-labeled antibody and sorted by optical recognition. In the proposed SCD biofluidic chip (SCD biochip), the interrogating antibody coats the microchannel surface and captures the cell population(s) of interest, without processing, incubation, or in vitro manipulation. The SCD biochip can also quantitate cellular adherence to experimental biological surfaces that are comprised of subcellular components. The SCD biochip is technically simple and experimentally flexible, whereby the population of interest is retained on the chip and quantitated in situ. The microchip system allows retrieval of viable isolated cells for potential downstream processing, analysis, and in vitro culture.