# Low-Cost Platform Technology for Rapid Isolation of Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells

> **NIH NIH R43** · CG SCIENTIFIC, INC. · 2020 · $274,946

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
CG Scientific aims to develop a low-cost microfluidic device for rapid isolation of peripheral blood
mononuclear cells (PBMCs), based on its patented platform technology named “High Efficiency
Deterministic Separation (HEDS).” This Phase I project will focus on PBMCs because they are essential
cells used in many areas of scientific and clinical research, including immunology, vaccine development,
drug discovery, as well as the study of auto-immune disorder, infectious disease, graft-versus-host
disease, and cancer. The current standard method for PBMC isolation is Ficoll density gradient
centrifugation. However, the method is difficult to perform, requires substantial hands-on time, and is
prone to human error and contamination. Further, it introduces biases and phenotypic changes of the
enriched cell population and results in cell loss during multiple wash and centrifugation steps. These
drawbacks make the method unsuitable for many applications, especially those that require the results
be consistent, accurate, and representative of disease states. To provide a better method that is free
from these drawbacks and that is cost-competitive with Ficoll, CG Scientific is developing an easy-to-use
device that can isolate PBMCs from 10 ml of blood in 15 minutes, enabled by the HEDS technology. The
technology has a unique configuration that allows for efficient density-medium-free isolation of cells and
low manufacturing cost. Preliminary data have shown that HEDS can outperform Ficoll density gradient
centrifugation and deliver significantly better PBMC recovery, RBC removal, and platelet depletion—with
undetectable loss of cell viability—using simply gravity feed. This Phase I project is aimed at
demonstrating the two most critical aspects of HEDS—rapid, high-yield PBMC isolation and low
manufacturing cost—following 3 Specific Aims: (1) optimize HEDS chip design to further improve cell
recovery and scale up throughput, (2) validate optimized chip performance and characterize cellular
output using flow cytometry in comparison with Ficoll density gradient centrifugation, and (3) demonstrate
plastic HEDS chip manufacturability using soft embossing. The investigator team includes the inventor
of the HEDS technology, cell biologists, plastic device manufacturing engineers, and directors of
research and clinical laboratories that are regular users of Ficoll. The success of this project will lead to
the development of an essential tool that will potentially replace Ficoll density gradient as the standard
method for isolating PBMCs and many other important cell types, and make scientific and clinical
research in many fields more efficient, reproducible, and cost effective.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10077472
- **Project number:** 1R43GM139391-01
- **Recipient organization:** CG SCIENTIFIC, INC.
- **Principal Investigator:** Lotien Richard Huang
- **Activity code:** R43 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $274,946
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-08-01 → 2022-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10077472

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10077472, Low-Cost Platform Technology for Rapid Isolation of Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells (1R43GM139391-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10077472. Licensed CC0.

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