In flow magnetophoresis : explorative research towards a cancer watch

Circulating Tumor Cells (CTC’s) are highly valuable for cancer diagnostics. Terstappen et al. proposed a wearable device called Cancer Watch which will be able to retrieve these cells in a dialysis-like manner. A present day alternative is offered by diagnostic leukapheresis (DLA), which filters nucleated cells, including CTC’s from circulation. In this thesis, a new microfluidic platform for processing DLA is explored. This platform consist of two steps: a rough immunomagnetic separation and a fine immunomagnetic separation. The rough immunomagnetic separation is performed with commercially available chips and is evaluated using modelling and experiments. The fine immunomagnetic separation is performed with a specially designed chip and is also evaluated using modelling and experiments.