# A Concise Review of the Control and Assessment of Magnetic Affinity Particle Assembly for Live Cell Analyses: State of the Art and Challenges

## TL;DR

This review explores how magnetic particles can be controlled to detect and analyze live cells in biomedical applications, focusing on challenges and recent advancements.

## Contribution

The paper provides a concise, interdisciplinary review of magnetic affinity particle assembly for live cell analysis, emphasizing control and assessment methods.

## Key findings

- Magnetic particles offer unique advantages for biosensing due to their controllability and functionalization.
- Recent advances include lab-on-a-chip methods for immunomagnetic cluster characterization and improved affinity capture.
- The review highlights the potential of magnetic clustering for detecting rare cells like CTCs and sepsis-related microorganisms.

## Abstract

Magnetic particles have gained prominence in biomedical analyses due to their unique properties, originating from the high surface area-to-volume ratio, ease of functionalization, and their ability to respond to an external magnetic field. Despite its impact in affinity-based biosensing, magnetic particle cluster formation is a largely underrepresented topic at the border of materials sciences, engineering, and biology. This mini-review examines the recent literature demonstrating novel assays based on the assembly of magnetic affinity particles and target live cells, fostering biomedical analyses. It highlights the biosensing opportunities of lab-on-a-chip characterization methods for immunomagnetic clusters and novel approaches for improving affinity capture. It critically discusses the specific means for the on–off control of particle-based immune clusters towards rapid, quantitative tools in live cell detection and analysis of their relevance for biomedical applications involving rare cells in patient samples, such as circulating tumor cells (CTC) and sepsis-related microorganisms. The review aims at encouraging research in magnetic affinity clustering control for biosensing and provides an inter-disciplinary perspective on this high-impact field.