Analyzing and sorting particles and/or biological cells in microfluidic devices is a topical problem in soft-matter and biomedical physics. An easy and rapid screening of the deformation of individual cells in constricted microfluidic channels allows, for example, the identification of sick or aberrant cells with altered mechanical properties, even in vast cell ensembles. The subsequently desired softness-specific segregation of cells is, however, still a major challenge. Moreover, aiming at an intrinsic and unsupervised approach raises a very general question: How can one achieve a softness-dependent net migration of particles in a microfluidic channel? Here, we show in a proof-of-principle experiment that this is possible by exploiting a deformation-induced actuation of soft cells in asymmetric periodic flow fields in which rigid beads show a vanishing net drift.

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• Biological fluid dynamics
• Cell mechanics
• Microfluidics
• Red blood cells