Self-Propelled Microrockets to Capture and Isolate Circulating Tumor Cells

摘要

The first report of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) can be traced back to 1869 when Thomas Ashworth, an Australian physician, observed tumor cells in the blood of a patient who succumbed to advanced metastatic cancer. Since then cancer research has proved the critical roles played by CTC in the metastatic spread of carcinomas. In addition, CTCs contain key information of how tumor genotypes evolve during the cancer progression. Therefore, technologies that can yield purer CTC populations from blood samples are powerful tools to provide early and noninvasive detection of cancer, along with the prediction of treatment responses and tumor progression. Despite these significances, in reality, CTCs are extremely rare. A few CTCs shed from metastatic tumors mingle with the approximately 10 million leukocytes and 5 billion erythrocytes in 1 mL of blood, making their detection and isolation a formidable technological challenge.