Microfluidic droplet encapsulation
AssigneeThe General Hospital Corporation
InventorsJon F. Edd, Mehmet Toner, Dino Dicarlo, Daniel Irimia
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Abstract
Microfluidic devices and methods for the encapsulation of particles within liquid droplets are disclosed. The new methods and devices form 1-100 picoliter-size monodisperse droplets containing the particles, such as single cells, encapsulated in individual liquid droplets. The particles can be encapsulated in droplets of a fluid by passing a fluid containing the particles through a high aspect-ratio microchannel to order the particles in the fluid, followed by forming the fluid into droplets. The resulting fraction of the liquid droplets with a single particle (e.g., a cell) is higher than the corresponding fraction of single-particle liquid droplets predicted by Poisson statistics.
Claims17
A method of encapsulating particles in liquid droplets, the method comprising
- passing a plurality of particles in a fluid medium through a channel having a minimum cross-sectional dimension D, wherein the largest particle in the plurality has a maximum cross-sectional dimension that is at least about 0.1D;
- ordering the plurality of particles into one or two ordered streams of particles in the fluid medium within the channel by flowing the fluid medium through the channel at a flow rate having a particle Reynolds Number (Rp) of about 2.9 and a Reynolds Number (Rc) of about 90, wherein ordering of particles occurs within a distance of about 1.0 cm along the channel;
- and
- forming the fluid medium into a plurality of droplets outside the channel, under conditions wherein the proportion of the plurality of droplets containing only one particle is at least about 80% of the total number of droplets formed outside the channel.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.