Method and apparatus for the identification and handling of particles

An apparatus for identification and handling of particles of interest within a population of particles, comprising:

• a microfluidic device for containing the population of particles, the microfluidic device comprising a plurality of individually controllable sites for separating selected particles of interest from the population of particles, handling only the selected particles of interest;
• a detection device, comprising one or more sensors internal and/or external to the microfluidic device, for scanning the whole microfluidic device and identifying, for each particle of said population of particles in the microfluidic device, at least one parameter from a set of characteristic parameters of said particles of interest;
• and
• a computer device for selecting from among said population of particles in the microfluidic device the particles of interest by comparing for each particle of said population of particles said at least one parameter with a respective threshold criterion, the computer device comprising:
• a storage device for storage of said at least one parameter identified for each particle of said population of particles when scanning the whole microfluidic device;
• and
• one or more processors configured for:
• (i) determining a value of at least one merit function of said at least one stored parameter for each particle of said population of particles,
• (ii) processing the value of at least one merit function of said at least one stored parameter for each particle of said population of particles to establish a distribution of the value of the merit function within the population of particles,
• (iii) combining said at least one merit function with a selection criterion of said particles of interest, said selection criterion being chosen from a group of possible selection criteria on the basis of the distribution of the value of the at least one merit function within the population of particles,
• (iv) establishing for each particle of said population of particles said threshold criterion, said threshold criterion being established on a case-by-case basis based on the combination of the at least one merit function with the chosen selection criterion, and
• (v) controlling the plurality of individually controllable sites to separate the selected particles of interest from the population of particles.