Density-gradient centrifugation is a label-free approach that has been extensively used for cell separations. Though elegant, this process is time-consuming (>30 min), subjects cells to high levels of stress (>350 g) and relies on user skill to enable fractionation of cells that layer as a narrow band between the density-gradient medium and platelet-rich plasma. We hypothesized that microfluidic adaptation of this technique could transform this process into a rapid fractionation approach where samples are separated in a continuous fashion while being exposed to lower levels of stress (99% separation efficiency suggesting that this approach can be further adapted for separation of cells.
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