Active microfluidic systems for cell sorting and separation

Abstract Rapid progress in the field of microfluidics coupled with increase in demand for cell separation techniques for biomedical diagnostics has gained significant attention among researchers. Designing cost-effective and miniaturized microfluidic devices with increased detection accuracy and throughput is a challenging task. Therefore, it is crucial to evaluate the current state-of-the-art microfluidic devices. This article critically reviews four different types of active microfluidic devices such as fluorescence-activated cell sorting, magnetic-activated cell sorting, dielectrophoresis, and acoustic microfluidic devices. Furthermore, their applications and limitations were discussed succinctly from an efficiency standpoint.