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International Journal of Epidemiology 2008 37(Supplement 1):i51-i55; doi:10.1093/ije/dym286
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Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association © The Author 2008; all rights reserved.

Designing an automated blood fractionation system

Adrian C McQuillan* and Sean D Sales

RTS Life Science Limited, Northbank, Irlam, Manchester M44 5AY, UK

* Corresponding author. E-mail: adrian.mcquillan{at}rts-group.com


  Abstract

Background UK Biobank will be collecting blood samples from a cohort of 500 000 volunteers and it is expected that the rate of collection will peak at ~3000 blood collection tubes per day. These samples need to be prepared for long-term storage. It is not considered practical to manually process this quantity of samples so an automated blood fractionation system is required.

Methods Principles of industrial automation were applied to the blood fractionation process leading to the requirement of developing a vision system to identify the blood fractions within the blood collection tube so that the fractions can be accurately aspirated and dispensed into micro-tubes. A prototype was manufactured and tested on a range of human blood samples collected in different tube types.

Results A specially designed vision system was capable of accurately measuring the position of the plasma meniscus, plasma/buffy coat interface and the red cells/buffy coat interface within a vacutainer. A rack of 24 vacutainers could be processed in <5 min.

Conclusion An automated, high throughput blood fractionation system offers a solution to the problem of processing human blood samples collected in vacutainers in a consistent manner and provides a means of ensuring data and sample integrity.

Keywords Automated blood fractionation

Accepted 10 December 2007


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