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This device reduced clogging by red blood cells and separated plasma volume was increased 4-fold compared to conventional devices.
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Summary Blood plasma separation is often the first step in blood-based clinical diagnostic procedures. Although centrifugation is the traditional method for blood plasma separation, it is time consuming, labor intensive, and therefore not suitable for point-of-care testing. Centrifugation can also lead to hemolysis (the rupture of red blood cells) which further results in plasma contamination and hinders effective protein and nucleic acid analysis in diagnostic testing. Researchers at UC Berkeley have developed a simple and robust on-chip blood plasma separation device that addresses the problems found with traditional centrifugation. The novel hemolyis-free microfluidic blood plasma separation device reduced clogging of red blood cells (the hemoglobin concentration in the separated plasma was reduced about 90% compared to conventional devices), yet provided comparable target molecule recovery.