Haemoprocessor: A Portable Platform Using Rapid Acoustically Driven Plasma Separation Validated by Infrared Spectroscopy for Point-of-Care Diagnostics

Abstract

The identification of biomarkers from blood plasma is at the heart of many diagnostic tests. These tests often need to be conducted frequently and quickly, but the logistics of sample collection and processing not only delays the test result, but also puts a strain on the healthcare system due to the sheer volume of tests that need to be performed. The advent of microfluidics has made the processing of samples quick and reliable, with little or no skill required on the user’s part. However, while several microfluidic devices have been demonstrated for plasma separation, none of them have validated the chemical integrity of the sample post-process. Here, we present Haemoprocessor: a portable, robust, open-fluidic system that utilizes Travelling Surface Acoustic Waves (TSAW) with the expression of overtones to separate plasma from 20× diluted human blood within a span of 2 min to achieve 98% RBC removal. The plasma and red blood cell separation quality/integrity was validated through Attenuated Total Reflection Fourier Transform Infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy and multivariate analyses to ascertain device performance and reproducibility when compared to centrifugation (the prevailing gold-standard for plasma separation). Principal Component Analysis (PCA) showed a remarkable separation of 92.21% between RBCs and plasma components obtained through both centrifugation and Haemoprocessor methods. Moreover, a close association between plasma isolates acquired by both approaches in PCA validated the potential of the proposed system as an eminent cell enrichment and plasma separation platform. Thus, compared to contemporary acoustic devices, this system combines the ease of operation, low sample requirement of an open system, the versatility of a SAW device using harmonics, and portability.

Salivary ATR-FTIR Spectroscopy Coupled with Support Vector Machine Classification for Screening of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

“…Additional studies are also needed to evaluate the high-throughput biophotonic platform and scalability issues [ 41 , 42 ] in the context of diabetes. Although the macroscale ATR-FTIR can be used in biomedical settings for the diabetes population, the development of lab-on-chip ATR-FTIR devices can be applied in point-of-care (PoC) diagnostics and vastly increase the scalability of biophotonic analysis [ 43 , 44 ], especially for diabetes condition [ 44 ]. A lab-on-chip ATR-FTIR device was proposed integrating a microfluidic approach with a pseudo-continuous flow FTIR system for glucose detection [ 44 ].…”

“…Another recently developed technology is a portable haemoprocessor combined with ATR-FTIR. It was efficiently tested and can be applied in a low-volume of biofluids [ 43 ].…”

Characterization of freeze-dried oxidized human red blood cells for pre-transfusion testing by synchrotron FTIR microspectroscopy live-cell analysis

“…FTIR microspectroscopy has been used in a wide variety of biological applications, including chemical mapping of changes to blood cells such as malaria-infected RBCs, hematological diseases and blood diagnostics. 10–14 The precision and versatility of FTIR-microspectroscopy is further enhanced when coupled with a synchrotron radiation energy source that significantly intensifies the beamline, facilitating ‘live-cell’ analyses, i.e. cells suspended in physiological medium.…”

A Combined Near-Infrared and Mid-Infrared Spectroscopic Approach for the Detection and Quantification of Glycine in Human Serum

“…Vibrational spectroscopy has proven to be an excellent and effective analytical tool for detecting and characterizing biological materials because it provides functional details on biochemical composition and molecular dynamics [16][17][18][19][20][21]. In particular, infrared spectroscopy has become an accepted tool for biomedical applications with many proofof-principle studies showing high specificity and sensitivity for disease detection and classification [18,20,[22][23][24][25][26][27].…”