✍🏼 Zongjie Wang & Shana O. Kelley

🏠 Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

📑Nature Biomedical Engineering (2025)

Abstract
The development and wider adoption of adoptive cell therapies is constrained by complex and costly manufacturing processes and by inconsistent efficacy across patients. Here we discuss how microfluidic and other fluidic devices can be implemented at each stage of cell manufacturing for adoptive cell therapies, from the harvesting and isolation of the cells to their editing, culturing and functional selection. We suggest that precise and controllable microfluidic systems can streamline the development of these therapies by offering scalability in cell production, bolstering the efficacy and predictability of the therapies and improving their cost-effectiveness and accessibility for broader populations of patients with cancer.

How is the WOLF used in this study
Although this article is a review of microfluidic technologies for adoptive cell therapy manufacturing, it discusses the role of microfluidic cell sorters like the NanoCellect WOLF in the broader context of streamlining and improving adoptive cell therapy workflows. Specifically, such benchtop microfluidic sorters are highlighted as tools that can enable gentle, high-viability isolation and enrichment of therapeutic cell populations—for example, selecting desired T-cell subsets or engineered cells during manufacturing—without imposing high shear stress that can compromise cell function. These gentle sorting platforms contribute to enhanced potency, purity, and predictability of cellular products by integrating precise enrichment steps early in the therapy production pipeline, ultimately supporting more consistent and effective clinical outcomes.