An integrated microfluidic device for the sorting of yeast cells using image processing

Abstract The process of detection and separation of yeast cells based on their morphological characteristics is critical to the understanding of cell division cycles, which is of vital importance to the understanding of some diseases such as cancer. The traditional process of manual detection is usually tedious and inconsistent. This paper presents a microfluidic device integrated with microvalves for fluid control for the sorting of yeast cells using image processing algorithms and confirmation based on their fluorescent tag. The proposed device is completely automated, low cost and easy to implement in an academic research setting. Design details of the integrated microfluidic system are highlighted in this paper, along with experimental validation. Real time cell sorting was demonstrated with a cell detection rate of 12 cells per minute.