Abstract
Safe blood transfusion requires compatibility testing of donor and recipient to prevent potentially fatal transfusion reactions. Detection of immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies requires incubation at 37 °C, often for up to 15 minutes. Current incubation technology predominantly relies on slow thermal-gradient dependent conduction. Here, we present rapid optical heating via laser, where targeted illumination of a blood-antibody sample in a diagnostic gel card is converted into heat, via photothermal absorption. Our laser-incubator heats the 75 µL blood-antibody sample to 37 °C in under 30 seconds. We show that red blood cells act as photothermal agents under near-infrared laser incubation, triggering rapid antigen-antibody binding. We detect no significant damage to the cells or antibodies for laser incubations of up to fifteen minutes. We demonstrate laser-incubated immunohaematological testing to be both faster and more sensitive than current best practice — with clearly positive results seen from laser incubations of just 40 seconds.
Highlights
Blood transfusion is a critical treatment for a variety of haematological conditions, including cancer chemotherapy (1.7 million new patients/year in US), sickle cell disease treatments (100,000 patients/year in US), bleeding trauma, including childbirth (4 million births/year in US), and major surgery
Infrared lasers have been used for heating of 50 μL droplets in polymerase chain reaction (PCR) studies[7,8] where in our study, the red blood cell (RBC) may act as photothermal agents
The RBC and antibody solutions are applied to the upper chamber of a gel card column for incubation (Fig. 1b.1)
Summary
Blood transfusion is a critical treatment for a variety of haematological conditions, including cancer chemotherapy (1.7 million new patients/year in US), sickle cell disease treatments (100,000 patients/year in US), bleeding trauma, including childbirth (4 million births/year in US), and major surgery. We present laser-based incubation for the photothermal heating of red blood cell and antibody samples in traditional gel cards, where the optical absorption properties of blood and water produce thermal energy (heat) via non-radiative decay processes.
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