Cancer accounted for nearly 10 million deaths in 2020—almost one in every six deaths globally—according to the World Health Organization. Because the detection of abnormal diseased cellular growth often occurs too late, timely cancer diagnosis remains one of humanity’s most pressing and elusive medical objectives.

Recent research has focused on the detection in peripheral blood of rare circulating tumor cells (CTCs), which serve as noninvasive markers that can help inform diagnoses.

It is inherently difficult to separate controllable target cells to examine. Traditional methods typically require elaborate sample preparation, substantial equipment, and large sample volumes—and even then, it is not easy to efficiently separate the cells in question.