Patent ID: 8723104

Claim:
A method of manipulating flowing particles, comprising steps of: a) providing fluid channels in which a laminar flow of suspended particles moving at constant speed is to be sorted; b) providing region of interest in the fluid channels via which the flow of particles pass; c) based on methodology of capturing image of the flow of particles, detecting individual first order motions of flowing particles and tracking movement of multiple particles of the flowing particles only in the region of interest by using imaging processing technique suiting capacity of optical trapping means; d) based on results from image processing in the step c), determining the presence of at least one target particle from the flow of particles; e) based on results from image processing in the step d), labeling center position of the at least one target particle with an index, the index configured for use in tracking movement of multiple particles of flowing particles in comparison with previous frame; and f) triggering the generation of an optical trapping means and changing the course of the at least one target particle transversely from a first flow stream to a second flow stream by the optical trapping means; wherein the method further comprises steps of: i) recording center position of the at least one target particle as current image frame by way of the index; and ii) step f), changing the course of the at least one target particle by a series of successive steps, and in each of the successive steps the optical trapping means is adapted to move the at least one target particle by a distance equal to the radius of the target particle and perpendicular to the laminar flow; wherein the velocity of the optical trap and the velocity of the laminar flow in the direction of the laminar flow along branching junction of the fluid channels are substantially the same; and wherein the optical trapping means includes at least one optical trap, and the number of optical traps employed corresponds to the number of detected target particles in the region of interest and the capacity of the optical trapping means.