Rare cell separation
Challenging sorting
Rare cells are scarce populations among a larger cohort, such as circulating tumor cells or stem cells expressed in blood. Sorting these cells out are a real challenge as the high cellular content of the background makes it hard to achieve results with both high recovery and high purity. It is often compared with finding the needle in a haystack, and the analogy is very appropriate.
Examples on rare cell separation at the department of Biomedical Engineering involves: