An Era of Diagnosing Cancer and Diabetes with a Single Magnet? New Technology Developed to Separate Plasma from Blood

UNIST Researchers Utilize Magnetic Differences by Blood Components... No Blood Cell Contamination or Hemolysis

Affordable and Rapid Power-Free, Battery-Free Technology Applicable for On-Site Blood Test Diagnostics

A research illustration showing the principle of plasma separation using magnets (A) and the actual separated plasma (yellow) (B).

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Yongwoo Kim] A domestic research team has developed a technology that cleanly separates plasma from blood using only magnets.

This is a power-free and electricity-free plasma separation technology. It is expected to improve the accuracy of on-site diagnostic blood tests, which have recently seen increased demand.

The research team led by Professor Jooheon Kang of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST, President Yong-Hoon Lee) developed a technology where blood flowing inside a chip is exposed to a magnet, causing blood cells to be pushed away from the magnet, thereby separating plasma and blood cells.

Using this method, the researchers were able to quickly obtain pure plasma with 0% blood cell content. They also succeeded in developing a highly accurate on-site diagnostic chip capable of simultaneous plasma separation and blood testing on a single chip.

Blood is composed of blood cells such as red blood cells and white blood cells, and a pale yellow liquid called plasma. Biomarkers such as bacterial genes and proteins targeted in blood tests are contained in plasma, so it is necessary to cleanly separate plasma from blood for accurate testing.

Principle and Performance Study Diagram of Developed Diagnostic Chip Without Plasma Separation (Integrated Plasma Separation and Testing Chip).

The research team developed a technology that can separate plasma without power or electricity by utilizing the difference in magnetic susceptibility, where paramagnetic particles added to blood cause blood cells and plasma components to respond differently to a magnet.

This principle generates a force that pushes blood cells away from the magnet. Paramagnetic particles can be easily removed after plasma separation using a magnetic structure.

The power-free plasma separation technology can quickly obtain pure plasma without hemolysis, which is the rupture of red blood cells, or blood cell contamination.

In particular, in experiments separating plasma from bacterially infected blood, bacterial genes were detected at twice the level compared to plasma separated by conventional centrifugation technology.

The research team also developed an ultra-small, low-cost, high-precision diagnostic chip that can test blood directly without plasma separation by applying this technology. Using the developed diagnostic chip, they were able to detect PSA protein, a biomarker for prostate cancer diagnosis.

Research team (from the back row, clockwise from the right): Professor Kang Jooheon, Researcher Oh Jiwoong, Assistant Professor Kwon Seyong, Assistant Professor Eom Yujin, Professor Jung Junwoo, Researcher Lee Minseok. [Image source=UNIST]

Professor Jooheon Kang, who led the research as the principal investigator, explained, “Although many studies have been conducted to develop reliable power-free plasma separation technology, no technology has met all the requirements simultaneously.”

Professor Kang emphasized, “If this novel plasma separation technology using magnets is successfully applied to on-site diagnostic blood analysis, it could have a significant ripple effect.”

Existing filter-based plasma separation technologies have the disadvantage that white or red blood cells may rupture during the separation process, releasing nucleic acids or proteins that can affect test results.

Also, microfluidic chip technologies that do not damage blood cells have limitations such as a small amount of plasma that can be separated from collected blood samples or the need for time-consuming blood preprocessing.

Se-yong Kwon, co-first author and research assistant professor at UNIST’s Department of Biomedical Engineering, explained, “We overcame the limitations of filter-based technologies that cause blood cell damage and existing microfluidic chip-based separation technologies that have yield and purity issues with a single magnet.”

This technology is also known to enable platelet-rich plasma (PRP) separation. Platelets have recently been recognized as new biomarkers for cancer and diabetes diagnosis.

Ji-woong Oh, co-first author and researcher in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, explained, “Unlike existing complex platelet-rich plasma separation technologies, we were able to easily control the amount of platelets in plasma simply by adjusting the blood flow rate inside the chip.”

This research involved Minseok Lee from the Department of Biomedical Engineering and was conducted as a collaborative study with Professor Junwoo Jeong and Professor Yujin Eom from the Department of Physics.

It was supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT’s Early Career Researcher Program, Samsung Electronics Future Technology Development Center, and the Basic Research Program (Ministry of Education) of the National Research Foundation of Korea.

The research results were published on May 12 in Small, a world-renowned academic journal published by Wiley, and were selected as a back cover paper to be featured in the publication.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.