A microfluidics-based instrument for cytomechanical studies of blood

A complete instrument for the measurement of erythrocyte (red blood cell) flow in microchannels is presented. The instrument measures circa 1500 cells on a cell-by-cell basis in an array of microchannels. Microchannel dimensions and operating pressures are physiologically-analogous. Resulting bi-variate data, obtained by real-time image processing, describes cell flow with a unique volume-velocity space representation which provides detailed insights into both cell flow resistance (independent of cell volume) and the presence of pathological sub-populations. The authors commence by discussing the instrument´s design, with particular attention to the microfluidics. They proceed to report analyses of the instrument´s reproducibility, the characterisation of normal blood, and their ability to detect artificial sub-populations of cells with rigid membranes produced by chemically modifying a fraction of the analyte. Having validated the performance of the instrument, the authors then present a clinical result from a transfused thalassaemic displaying highly irregular microrheological metrics