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Overview Of Cell Separation And Isolation

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Cell separation was first achieved in 1964 by S. H. Seal, who separated large tumor cells from the smaller blood cells using filtration. Two years later, Pohl and Hawk performed experiments on how cells respond differently to a nonuniform electric field based on the cell type. Such observations were the inception of cell separation methods, which allow isolating a single cell type from a heterogeneous sample.

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Updated: Jan 13, 2026

Pneumatically Driven Microfluidic Platform for Micro-Particle Concentration

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Published on: February 1, 2022

Microfluidic shape-based separation for cells and particles: recent progress and future perspective.

Muhammad Soban Khan¹, Raihan Hadi Julio¹, Mushtaq Ali¹

¹Department of Mechanical Engineering, Chonnam National University, 77 Yongbong-ro, Buk-gu, Gwangju 61186, Republic of Korea. jinsoopark@jnu.ac.kr.

|January 7, 2026

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Shape-based microfluidic separation offers precise particle isolation, outperforming size-based methods for biomedical and material applications. This review details advancements in passive and active techniques for shape-selective cell and particle sorting.

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Area of Science:

Microfluidics
Biotechnology
Materials Science

Background:

Conventional size-based particle separation methods are limited.
Shape-based separation is crucial for isolating particles with identical volumes but different morphologies, essential for biomedical applications like pathological cell isolation.
Microfluidic platforms offer a powerful yet underdeveloped strategy for shape-based separation.

Purpose of the Study:

To provide a comprehensive overview of recent progress in microfluidic platforms for shape-selective separation.
To critically analyze both passive and active microfluidic techniques for shape discrimination.
To highlight advancements, challenges, and future directions in shape-based microfluidic separation.

Main Methods:

Review of passive microfluidic systems: deterministic lateral displacement, pinched flow fractionation, inertial, and viscoelastic microfluidics.
Review of active microfluidic systems: dielectrophoresis, magnetophoresis, optophoresis, and acoustophoresis.
Analysis of underlying mechanisms, technological advancements, and experimental/computational approaches for shape sensitivity.

Main Results:

Recent advancements show high purities exceeding 95% and shape-based sorting efficiencies above 90%.
Throughput rates vary from microliters to milliliters per minute, depending on device configuration.
Techniques exploit hydrodynamic interactions or external fields to modulate particle trajectories based on geometric anisotropy.

Conclusions:

Shape-based microfluidic separation is a promising strategy for high-precision particle isolation in diagnostics, therapeutics, and materials science.
Challenges include modeling complex particle behaviors (rotation, alignment, deformability) and the need for integrated control and optimization.
Future directions involve advancing scalable, high-precision shape-based separation techniques.