Microfluidics for Disease Diagnosis & Precision Therapy: From Bench to Bedside
用于疾病诊断和精准治疗的微流控技术：从实验室到临床
Chwee Teck (C.T.) Lim（林水德）
ABSRACT
There are approximately 5 billion cells in one milliliter of blood with red blood cells accounting for >99% of all cellular components. Besides blood constituents, pathogenic microorganisms or diseased cells such as circulating cancer cells can also be present in peripheral blood. In fact, this is of clinical significance as their presence in blood can present possible routes for disease detection and diagnosis. Here, we address these issues and demonstrate that cell mechanics related biomarkers such as cell size and deformability can be effectively used for diseased cell detection and diagnosis from blood using microfluidics by leveraging on its many inherent advantages such as high sensitivity and spatial resolution, short processing time and low cost. We will present examples of diagnosis of diseases via the detection and retrieval of diseased cells such as malaria infected red blood cells, bacteria and circulating tumor cells from peripheral blood of patients via a routine blood draw (aka liquid biopsy). These simple, efficient and cost effective approaches will be imperative in realizing diagnostics as well as the enrichment of clinical samples for subsequent downstream molecular analyses.
一毫升血液中约有50亿个细胞，其中99%是红细胞。在外周循环血中，除了红细胞以外，还存在一些致病微生物或者患病的细胞，例如循环癌细胞等。事实上，这些患病细胞的存在具有非常高的临床价值，因为这些致病微生物和患病细胞在血液当中出现的可以作为疾病诊断和检测的重要指标。微流控技术具有灵敏度和空间分辨率高，样品处理时间短和价格低等优点。用微流控技术对血液中与细胞的力学性质相关（例如大小和形变等等）的生物标志物进行的研究表明，这类标志物可以用于有效的检测和分析患病细胞。利用这种方法，我们成功的实现了通过在病人的常规抽血（即液体活检）的外周循环血样中检测和探寻患病细胞，例如疟疾感染的红细胞，细菌和循环肿瘤细胞，来进行疾病诊断。这些检测手段简单，有效而且经济，是实现诊断和丰富用于下游分子分析的临床样品所急需的方法。
BIOGRAPHY
Professor Chwee Teck Lim is the NUS Society Chair Professor, Founding PI of Mechanobiology Institute and Director of the Institute for Health Innovation and Technology (iHealthtech) at the National University of Singapore. He is also the Founding Director of the Singapore Health Technologies Consortium. His research interests are in the mechanobiology of human diseases and microfluidic technologies for disease diagnosis, prognosis, precision therapy and healthcare wearable applications.
He has coauthored over 400 peer-reviewed journal publications including in Nature, Science, Nature Materials, Nature Physics, Nature Communications, Advanced Materials, PNAS, Chemical Reviews, etc and has also given close to 400 plenary/keynote/invited lectures. He is an elected fellow of both the American Institute for Medical & Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and the International Academy for Medical & Biological Engineering (IAMBE), Academy of Engineering, Singapore (SAEng) and the Singapore National Academy of Science (SNAS). He currently sits on the editorial boards or as associate editor of more than 20 international journals. Prof Lim has co-founded six spin-offs to commercialize technologies developed in his lab.
He and his team have garnered over 100 research awards including Highly Cited Researcher in 2019, International Precision Medicine Center Conference Prize in 2017, ASEAN Outstanding Engineering Achievement Award. Asian Scientists 100 and IES Prestigious Engineering Achievement Award in 2016, Vladimir K. Zworykin Award in 2015, Credit Suisse Technopreneur of the Year Award and Wall Street Journal Asian Innovation Award (Gold) in 2012 and President's Technology Award in 2011 among others.
林水德教授是新加坡国立大学机械生物学研究所的创立者、国立大学健康创新与技术研究所（iHealthtech）的所长。他也是新加坡健康技术协会的创始董事。他的研究领域是人类疾病的机械生物学和用于疾病诊断、预后、精确治疗和医疗穿戴应用的微流控技术。林水德教授与人合著了400多份经同行评议的期刊，包括《自然》、《科学》、《自然材料》、《自然物理学》、《自然通讯》、《高级材料》、《PNAS》、《化学评论》等，还举办了近400次全会/主题演讲/特邀演讲。他是美国医学与生物工程研究所（AIMBE）和国际医学与生物工程学院（IAMBE）、新加坡工程学院（SAEng）和新加坡国家科学院（SNAS）的当选院士。他目前担任20多家国际期刊的编辑委员会成员或副主编。林教授与人共同创立了六家公司，将其实验室开发的技术商业化。林水德教授和他的团队获得了100多项研究奖项，包括2019年高被引研究员、2017年国际精密医学中心会议奖、东盟杰出工程成就奖。2016年获得亚洲百位杰出科学家和IES著名工程成就奖，2015年获得Vladimir K. Zworykin奖，2012年获得瑞信年度技术专家奖和《华尔街日报》亚洲创新金奖，2011年获得总统技术奖等。