SELF DRIVEN MICROFLUIDIC FILTER FOR SEPERATING LIQUID FROM A LIQUID INCLUDING DEFORMABLE PARTICLES (I.E. PLASMA FROM BLOOD)

This Novel Microfluidic blood plasma filter has been design and validated in MicroTechLab of the Mechanical Engineering Department of UPC. Currently, partners to combine the System with a diagnositc tool and batch produce it and/or to establish commercial agreements along with technical cooperation are tought. Nowadays, there is a growing need for lab-on-chip devices especially in clinical analysis and diagnostics. First step in most blood assays is plasma extraction from whole blood. Compared to traditional centrifugation processes ”lab-on-a-chip” devices minimize the manipulation errors, reduce the time from blood collection to the test and provide faster and yet less expensive and comprehensive results since the amount of sample and reagents are drastically reduced. Although many researchers have developed plasma separation from whole blood utilizing different techniques, the volume of extracted plasma and the separation time are the two main barriers to implement the current commercial test on microfluidicplatforms. This patent presents a novel high throughput blood plasma separation microfluidic chip which has been designed and fabricated to be used as first step in a point-of-care Device to maximize the amount of plasma extracted from a single blood droplet. Hydrodynamic behavior of red blood cells in a constriction channel is the base for plasma extraction using a symmetric cross flow filtration MIMP (Microchannel Integrated Micro-Pillars) channel together with electrokinetic techniques are used to maximize the amount of extracted plasma and minimize the time required for a complete separation.