Reimagining Flow Cytometric Cell Sorting

Abstract

In this review, a brief history of this unrivaled technology, flow cytometry, is provided, highlighting its past and present advances, with particular focus on “flow cell” technologies. Flow cytometry has truly revolutionized high-throughput single cell analysis, which has tremendous implications, from laboratory to the clinic. This technology embodies what is truly referred to as cross fertile research, merging the physical with the life sciences. This review introduces the recent notable advancements in flow cell technology. This advancement sees the complete removal of liquid sheath flow, which has advanced the technology with the possibility of both the reduction in its foot print, while also simplifying the flow cells explored in cytometry. Interestingly, the novel sheathless flow cell technology demonstrated herein has the flexibility for handling both heterogeneous cell populations and whole organisms, thus demonstrating a versatile flow cell technology for both flow cytometry and fluorescent-activated cell sorting.