Automatic reagent handling and assay processing of human biospecimens inside a transportation container for a medical disaster response against radiation

by Adam R. Akkad, Jian Gu, Brett Duane, Alan Norquist, David J. Brenner, Adarsh Ramakumar, Frederic Zenhausern

Biological materials can be shipped off-site for diagnostic, therapeutic and research purposes. They usually are kept in certain environments for their final application during transportation. However, active reagent handling during transportation from a collection site to a laboratory or biorepository has not been reported yet. In this paper, we show the application of a micro-controlled centrifugal microfluidic system inside a shipping container that can add reagent to an actively cultured human blood sample during transportation to ensure a rapid biodosimetry of cytokinesis-block micronucleus (CBMN) assay. The newly demonstrated concept could have a significant impact on rapid biodosimetry triage for medical countermeasure in a radiological disaster. It also opens a new capability in accelerated sample processing during transportation for biomedical and healthcare applications.