We are developing the "next generation centrifuge".
In the future, our CleanPlasma demonstrator will simplify and automate the labor-intensive preparation of blood plasma for liquid biopsy, improve the quality of the plasma obtained, and reduce working time and costs in the process.
Modern diagnostic techniques enable the early detection of diseases based on biomarkers found in blood or other body fluids. For example, the DNA of a tumor released into the blood reveals the cancer even before the tumor becomes visible. Until now, to get at the biomarkers in blood plasma, patient samples have been spun in several steps using a centrifuge to separate the blood cells from the plasma. However, this standard method of sample preparation involves many manual steps and often does not yield the required purity.
Our CleanPlasma technology solves these problems with a completely new approach. Our "centrifuge" is a small microfluidic chip and instead of high mechanical forces, we use gentle sound waves to separate the blood cells and obtain a highly pure plasma sample. Best of all, the CleanPlasma process is fully automatable, allowing sample preparation to be integrated directly into existing diagnostic equipment.
The group Acoustic Microsystems is in possession or has - in close collaboration with other IFW groups in the fields of microstructuring technology and thin film analytics - direct access to all equipment needed for the work on acoustic-wave based devices in all stations of their development.
