A patent for a microfluidic “Cell Capture System and Method of Use” was assigned U.S. Patent No. 9103754 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
The patent covers DeNovo’s core technology which revolves around a transparent, PCR-grade plastic microfluidic chip with exactly the same footprint as that of a standard glass slide. This microfluidic system captures and segregates rare circulating tumor cells (CTCs) as single cells or clusters in a well-defined array of individual capture chambers to either allow downstream on-chip single cell analysis or single cell retrieval.
The system allows blood samples to be processed without any pre-processing such as centrifugation and red blood cell lysis while providing an efficient recovery of CTCs.
DeNovo’s automated cell preparation machine, JETTA400, processes 4 slides simultaneously. DeNovo also automates the analysis of the captured CTCs in a slide scanner and image processor named VanGuard.