(161a) Dynamic Self-Assembly of Human Cells Using Inertial Microflow

The inertial migration phenomenon of particles in a dilute suspension can be utilized to place the particles at precise positions inside a conduit. In microchannels, particles self-assemble into ordered trains at inertial focusing positions close to the channel walls. Therefore, engineering the inertial fluid flow at microscale using the inertial microfluidic platform has emerged as a powerful method for dynamic self-assembly of micron-sized particles. Although the number and location of inertial focusing positions can be controlled by changing the aspect ratio of the channel and fluid inertia, engineering the spacing between particles necessitates understanding the hydrodynamic interaction between particles. Forming ordered trains of human cells inside the microchannel poses new challenges due to polydispersity and deformability of cell populations. Regardless of the challenges in controlling the space between cells in microchannel trains of particles, dynamic self-assembly of cells comprises a wide range of important applications such as single cell droplet encapsulation, flow cytometry and epigenomics. In the present work, we employ microchannel experiments and lattice-Boltzmann simulations in order to study the dynamic self-assembly of a multi-modal suspension of hard spheres and human cancer cells. It will be discussed that particles equilibrate at preferred spacings, or attractors, from one another in their inertial flow inside the channel. We demonstrate the eect of ow inertia, the number density of particles in the suspension and the channel dimensions on the location and the number of attractors.