Smartphone-based cytometric biosensors for point-of-care cellular diagnostics

Abstract

Analysis on a single-cell basis is both fundamental and meaningful in biomedical research and clinical practice. Flow cytometry is one of the most popular approaches in this field with broad applications in cell sorting, counting, and identification of rare cells. However, the complicated design and bulky size of conventional flow cytometry have restricted their applications mainly in centralized laboratories. With the recent development of smartphone devices, smartphone-based cytometry has been explored and tested for single-cell analysis. Compared with traditional cytometers, smartphone-based cytometric biosensors are more suitable for point-of-care (POC) uses, such as on-site disease diagnosis and personal health monitoring. In this review article, the history of traditional flow cytometry is introduced, and advances of smartphone-enabled cytometry are summarized in detail based on different working principles. Representative POC applications of smartphone cytometers are also discussed. The achievements demonstrated so far illustrate the potential of smartphone-based cytometric devices to transform single-cell measurement in general, with a significant impact in POC diagnostics, preventive medicine, and cell biology.