Design Evolution and Performance Study of a Reliable Platelet-Rich Plasma Microdevice

Separation and enrichment of platelets from whole blood find numerous applications for biomedical research, dermatology, and transfusion purposes. Therefore, there is a great value in selectively isolating and enriching platelets in plasma from whole blood. The conventional method of centrifugation involves several manual steps and cannot be integrated with point-of-care devices. Here, we present an evolved passive microdevice for the enhanced fold enrichment and separation efficiency of platelets in a platelet-enriched plasma sample. The design steps for arriving at the final design are also presented, as learnings from these early designs helped in evolution of the final microdevice; these early designs can also be used as a reference for further studies. The final proposed microdevice is easy to fabricate, requires less hardware and pumping power than available microdevices, and separates high-quality platelets from a whole blood sample. Our microdevice is able to achieve ∼15-fold platelet enrichment. Several biological tests attest to the high quality of platelets obtained from the microdevice. The performance of the developed microdevice is superior to those of few available microdevices. Our work suggests that passive microdevices can attain or even surpass the performance of active microdevices.