Investigation of shear stress and cell survival in a microfluidic chip for a single cell study

Shear stress has emerged as a significant player in cell viability because it directly affects cell physical and biological properties. This draws a great attention of cell survival in the field of microfluidics. Recently, the spiral microchannel technique has widely been used in a process of cell separation because it is a size-based separation technique and does not require an external field, however, the microchannel including its accessories generate the shear stress that causes cell damage! In order to address this issue, the reduction of shear stress in microfluidic devices needs to take into our consideration. This project presents the investigation of shear stress in the setup including syringe, silicone tube, needle, spiral microchannel device, straight channel and outlets by using computational simulation as well as finding the possibly survival cells on the devices using a microscopy with vital dye. According to our work, computational software potentially identifies the critical areas inside the device where cells would be damaged due to shear stresses.