Enrichment of Rare Cells from Whole Blood for Chip-based Analysis

Inhalt:
An automated mixing chamber for magnetic cell separation (MACS) of rare cells from blood is presented. The commonly used method for MACS is very time and labor intensive. The presented automatic mixing chamber performs mixing of several millilitres of blood with magnetic beads, bead attraction, exchange of buffers, and reduction of volume and finally transport of beads/target cells to a subsequent microsystem, thereby saves time, avoids contaminations and enhances reproducibility of results. Several mixer designs were tested regarding the mixing performance. Mixing is finally realised by a paddle wheel mixer which prevents cells and particles from settling while incubated for 1-2 hours and does not affect the vitality of cells. The paddle is assembled into an egg-shaped mixing chamber.