Three‐Dimensional Nanostructured Substrates toward Efficient Capture of Circulating Tumor Cells

A grabby substrate: A 3D nanostructured substrate, namely, a silicon-nanopillar (SiNP) array coated with epithelial-cell adhesion-molecule antibody (anti-EpCAM), shows enhanced local topographic interactions between nanoscale cell-surface components and the substrates surface, resulting in enhanced cell-capture efficiency when employed to isolate viable cancer cells from whole-blood samples (see schematic and SEM image of a captured cancer cell).