A Plasma Separator Enabling HIV Viral Load Tests in Decentralized Settings

Meng Sun of the Zymeron Corporation in the U.S. will develop a small, handheld, low-cost device for rapid plasma separation from whole blood for HIV diagnostic testing. Existing versions of the device will be modified to be able to process a larger volume of blood and deliver 100-200 microliters of plasma. The device is designed for untrained users. It can readily be modified to connect with blood drawing devices, including automatically sampling a fixed volume of blood to process, either by capillary action or direct loading, and delivering a fixed volume of plasma. It can also readily be integrated to deliver plasma to different diagnostic platforms, such as those based on microfluidics and lateral flow systems.