(776a) Isolation of Rare Circulating Tumor Cells and in Situ Culturing

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) shed by primary and metastatic tumors are shown to carry important genetic and phenotypic information about tumor progression. Since late 1990s, massive microfluidic research effort has been devoted to isolate and characterize CTCs as a non-invasive method for cancer diagnosis and prognosis. One of the most effective methods to separate CTCs from blood is the immunoaffinity based CTC-chip with high capture efficiency and purity. However, the ability to use the captured CTCs to perform cellular characterization and drug screening is limited due to the fact that CTCs are rare. In order to overcome this challenge, we present a novel method to capture cancer cells from blood and conduct in situ cell culturing in a microfluidic platform. Low numbers of cancer cells spiked into whole blood are captured in a CTC-chip. Consequently, the captured cells are cultured on the same device. The growth of the cells is monitored and recorded for 72hrs using an on-stage culture chamber. This CTC isolation and culturing system can test the sensitivity of drugs and assist in therapy determination therefore extend the diagnostic potential of current CTC isolation technologies.