Hardware Classification of Circulating Tumour Cells and Clusters

Circulating tumour cells (CTCs) are rare cancerous cells that disperse into the bloodstream from a primary tumour. Study of heterogenous CTCs have the potential to yield insights into the development and treatment of cancer. It is therefore of interest to develop non-invasive methods to sort and enumerate small numbers of rare CTCs into subpopulations to aid the characterization of these cells. This thesis reports a new integrated microfluidic device that counts and profiles CTCs according to their biomarker expression. Single cells and clusters of cells in blood are detected using Hall sensors made from monolayer graphene. The Hall sensors are integrated with magnetic separation methods to profile CTCs based on their epithelial surface markers. The integrated devices automate the non-invasive capture, selective release and enumeration of rare cells in blood. The capabilities of the integrated sensors are confirmed using experimental work with cell lines and with a xenografted mouse study.M.A.S