A Lab-on-a-Chip Capillary Network for Red Blood Cell Diagnosis

The main function of red blood cells (RBCs) is to circulate oxygen and carbon dioxide throughout the human body. Accurate modeling of the transportation mechanism of RBCs inside microvessels will lead to better clinical diagnosis and prophylaxis of blood disease. This study combined hydrodynamics and basic circuit theory to produce a model and calculate the fluid mechanisms of the circulation of blood cells inside microvessels. The variations of physical properties inside the microvessels due to clogging by RBCs were analyzed. A lab-on-a-chip for RBC diagnosis was fabricated using soft lithography. Real experiments were conducted to verify the theoretical analysis and illustrate the capability of the device which was able to detect pathological changes in RBC deformability. The proposed device could be a convenient tool in the field of blood rheology and clinical applications.