Sequential processing of biological fluids

Abstract

A process for the sequential processing of opaque and transparent biological fluids such as whole blood, apheresis blood, bone marrow blood, umbilical cord blood, buffy coat or cultured cells by processing steps in a hollow cylindrical centrifugal processing chamber () which is part of a disposable set. At least three different procedures selected from washing, incubation, transduction, separation, density gradient separation, dilution and volume adjustment are each carried out once or repeated a number of times according to a given processing profile in the processing chamber. Each procedure involves an input into the processing chamber, an operation in the processing chamber and an output from the processing chamber by displacement of a piston (). The at least three different procedures are sequentially chained one after the other to constitute an overall sequential operation in the processing chamber and its disposable set. A first application is incubation for binding magnetic beads with human blood cells or stem cells. A second application is transduction by which foreign genetic material is inserted into human blood cells or stem cells by a virus. A third application is reconditioning biological fluids to achieve reproducible concentration and volumes of blood cells or stem cells.