Manufacturing, replication and assessment of microfluidics for blood plasma separation

Point of care diagnostics gain importance with regard to novel diagnostic techniques. Future applications, for example based on cell-free DNA, are prenatal or cancer diagnostics. With regard to these methods a large influence of natural blood degradation during full blood storage and transport before laboratory based separation restricts possible applications. With a point of care plasma separation device, the plasma can be separated from full blood directly after blood collection. Thus, diagnostic markers remain undamaged and allow a highly specific detection. Targeting microfluidics for point-of-care blood plasma separation, this work presents the development of a microfluidic blood plasma separation device along a novel process chain. Besides system design and manufacturing technologies for prototypes, the development of technologies for replication, closure of microfluidics and affecting of surface properties are under the special scope of this investigation.