Microfluidic Yeast Lifespan Screening via Daughter Cell Trapping

The patent replaces manual mechanical micro-dissection with an automated microfluidic system that uses fluid flow and microstructured channels to separate and count daughter cells. The microfluidic device uses pressure-driven flow and geometric constraints to automatically isolate daughter cells from mother cells, eliminating the need for manual manipulation while maintaining measurement accuracy and dramatically increasing throughput.

The microfluidic system performs self-automation where the device structure itself enables the separation and counting processes without external manual intervention. The microstructured channels and flow conditions are designed to automatically separate daughter cells from mother cells based on their size differences, and the system self-regulates the counting process through integrated detection mechanisms.

The microfluidic system enables continuous monitoring and counting of daughter cells throughout the entire replicative lifespan of mother cells. Instead of discrete manual interventions at each time point, the system continuously maintains culture conditions, automatically separates cells, and counts daughter cells at multiple time points simultaneously, providing continuous data acquisition that accelerates screening while maintaining precision.

The patent transitions from single-cell manual analysis to multi-cell parallel analysis by adding the dimension of parallel processing. The microfluidic device can simultaneously culture and analyze multiple mother cells in parallel across different channels, and the system can process multiple time points concurrently, effectively adding temporal and spatial dimensions to the measurement process that dramatically reduce total screening time.