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.