A bench top magnetic separator for malarial parasite concentration

Abstract

A bench top magnetic separator is described which is suitable for separating red blood cells infected with malarial parasites from whole blood. The separator is based on a compact 0.7T permanent magnet and uses a high gradient magnetic filter of approximately 2.5 cm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sup> volume. Experiments with malaria parasitised mouse red cells (Plasmodium berghei) show that final parasite concentrations in excess of 90% can be achieved.