Submitted by: Dr. Mina Hoorfar
CTCs circulating in the bloodstream are the source of metastasis and hence responsible for the majority of cancer-related deaths. Detection of CTCs can be used as a prognostic method since the collection and analysis of blood is easy, compared to biopsy, and can be performed at any stages of disease for appropriate modification in therapy. The problem with the current techniques developed for the detection of CTCs is their sensitivity to sample preparation and the fact that there are only a few CTCs among billions of blood cells in every mL of blood. The ATFL group at UBC, in collaboration with UC Berkeley, is developing a microfluidic device that can isolate CTCs from the whole blood without any need for upstream processes.