Population statistics meets microfluidics for cell-based assays

What is it about?

The biological cells we study in Petri dishes vary in the way they respond to treatment and other stimuli. However, this variability within the cell population is often not well described, even though lots of subtle information is hidden in this variability. While some researchers have begun to study this heterogeneity of cell populations in some cell culture formats, the topic has remained largely unexplored for more recently developed microfluidic cell-based platforms. This paper examines the use of some population heterogeneity "descriptors" in the context of microfluidic systems, with the goal of introducing the concept of heterogeneity to the microfluidics community.

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Why is it important?

Microfluidics is becoming increasingly prevalent and more widely adopted in biological laboratories. At the same time, population heterogeneity has gradually received more attention with advances in single-cell analytical techniques and the advent of data-driven science. Thus, it is timely and useful to bring these two fields together to examine how both can assist in the advancement of the other.