High-Throughput Image Cytometry for Rare Cell Detection

The detection of rare cells in a large heterogeneous population of healthy cells has become an extremely important task in medical diagnostics, regenerative medicine, and drug discovery. The types of such rare cells include antigen- specific T cells, hematopoietic stem cells, fetal cells in maternal blood, and circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in blood. Particularly important among these cells are CTCs – precursors to cancer metastasis that circulate in the bloodstream of cancer patients [1, 2]. Unfortunately, conventional cell-screening methods fall short of providing sufficient sensitivity, specificity, and throughput required for identification of these cells with a reasonable statistical accuracy in a practical period of time. Next-generation medical instruments that should satisfy these requirements are expected to play a critical role for reducing medical costs (especially for the elderly) and hence improving their quality of life.