A centrifugal microfluidic platform that separates whole blood samples into multiple removable fractions due to several discrete but continuous density gradient sections

Abstract

We present a miniaturized centrifugal platform that uses density centrifugation for separation and analysis of biological components in small volume samples (5 μL). We demonstrate the ability to enrich leukocytes for on-disk visualization via microscopy, as well as recovery of viable cells from each of the gradient partitions. In addition, we simplified the traditional Modified Wright-Giemsa staining by decreasing the time, volume, and expertise involved in the procedure. From a whole blood sample, we were able to extract 95.15% of leukocytes while excluding 99.8% of red blood cells. This platform has great potential in both medical diagnostics and research applications as it offers a simpler, automated, and inexpensive method for biological sample separation, analysis, and downstream culturing.