A 3D-Printed Electrical Impedance Flow Cytometer Array for Parallel Detection of Cellular Biomarkers

In this paper, we present a 3D-printed impedance flow cytometer array for parallel detection of cellular biomarkers. All components of this device were fabricated by additive manufacturing techniques including detection electrode arrays printed using conductive polymer and microscale sensing channels printed using non-conductive polymer. We tested this device at both DC and AC cytometry modes. The particle sizing error is less than 8.6%, and total throughput of 16 parallel sensing units is 200 counts/s at DC flow cytometry mode. White blood cells, lung cancer cells (A549) and breast cancer cells (MCF-7) were used to evaluate the device’s performance at AC flow cytometry mode. Based on cells’ dielectric properties and machine learning algorithms, this device is capable to identify cell types with accuracy higher than 93%, which demonstrates that 3D printing techniques are capable to customize electrical impedance flow cytometer array for parallel analysis of cellular biomarkers.