ENABLING RELIABLE DETECTION OF LOW ABUNDANCE MALARIA PARASITES FROM BLOOD USING INERTIAL MICROFLUIDICS

In this paper, a highly efficient inertial microfluidic device was described to enable the enrichment and purification of malaria parasites from blood, which leads to more reliable and specific PCR-based malaria detection. The device makes use of equilibrium between shear-modulated inertial lift and wall-induced lift forces to remove WBCs, thereby facilitating malaria parasite enrichment. The cascaded system is able to process 1 mL of lysed blood in 15 min, with the WBC depletion efficiency of 99.99% which is higher than any commercially available kit (i.e., CD-45 coated beads) for this purpose. Parasite densities ranging from 10³ to 10⁴ P. falciparum parasites per mL (∼ 2 per μL) have been quantified in whole blood using quantitative PCR. Obtained results revealed that the sample preparation using the inertial microfluidic device can significantly enhance the PCR results and make it more reliable by removing most of the unwanted genomic materials and PCR inhibitors.