Laboratory Magnetic Beads Separation kit

When handling samples obtained from difficult (environmental) matrices (e.g. manure, dirty surface swabs, or water), Nucleic acid extraction and purification often becomes problematic.

Scaling up during epidemics or environmental disasters, relies on automatic (robot pipetting) systems that very often cannot handle samples contaminated with substances that clog magnetic beads extraction procedures. As a result, a relatively large number of samples have to be processed by hand, which is already labour-intensive (and therefore expensive). 

In addition, even relatively basic equipment to be used in these procedures is ridiculously expensive, when obtained from commercial entities (single magnetic stands of €350,- to €750,-).

Circumventing this requires well designed and (laboratory) tested custom-made solutions, before successful implementation can be achieved. In this project I designed a custom-made magnetic beads separation kit for the extraction and purification of Nucleic acids. This kit is based on the laboratory tested NucliSense magnetic beads based Nucleic acid extraction and purification procedures. 

The designed modular kit was developed using the ‘Not for commercial use’ free version of Autodesk Fusion 360. The kit consists of four Magnetic stands for 15ml or 50 ml Greiner/Falcon tubes and a magnetic stand for 20 1.5-2.0 ml Eppendorf tubes. Magnetic separation can be achieved by adding cheap but strong small magnetic strips, or standard refrigerator or smaller round magnets that can be purchased cheap everywhere.

Designer’s background

I am an experienced molecular microbiologist and operational as an (biological and chemical) expert within the CBRN response unit of the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands (RIVM). In my 16 years of experience in the field of Public Health, especially in sampling and molecular biological analyses of pathogenic organisms (viruses & bacteria), I know too well how difficult and relatively time-consuming collecting and analysing samples of hazardous materials can be (e.g. human/animal tissue & environmental samples). As a result, I started designing, 3D printing and field testing of practical sampling, storage an laboratory analyses kits for the needs of our CBRN response unit.