A new lab-on-a-chip device to judge red blood cells

Red blood cell transfusion is a life-saving action for patients in various situations. Besides numerous safety measures for pathogens, there is no quality control of red blood cells during storage. In contrast, it has been shown, that decreased red blood cell deformability impairs the transfusion outcome.

Erysense is a novel microfluidic device, which characterises red blood cell flow properties. The point-of-care device assesses red blood cell shapes at various flow velocities. Shape classification is performed using neural networks. The resulting phase diagrams (shape classifications at different flow velocities) are characteristic for red blood cell properties such as their deformability.

We show a continuous loss of red blood cell quality over the storage time of 10 weeks. The quality of the correlation between the assessed parameter and the storage time is better for parameters derived from artificial intelligence compared with analytical parameters. The severeness of quality loss is variable and donor-dependent.

Microfluidic characterization on red blood cells by Erysense allows their quality control meeting the required activity by the SoHO EU directive. Additional studies with an increased number of donors are necessary to impose general guidelines. Furthermore, Erysense bears the potential to enable precision transfusion concepts.

I'm a shareholder of Cysmic GmbH.