Large-volume centrifugal microfluidic device for whole blood sample preparation

Abstract

This paper reports a novel centrifugal microfluidic device for integrated sample preparation of large-volume whole blood samples for nucleic acid analysis. We present a device capable of processing 2 milliliters of undiluted blood while still allowing for the integration with downstream amplification and detection steps. In biological validation experiments, this device was shown to yield separated plasma samples with high purity (< 99.99%) in less than half the time of gold standard hospital techniques. We further propose the need for heightened emphasis placed on the development of μTAS devices capable of interfacing with large-volume samples.