Preanalytics

We Offer

• Differnt solutions tailored to your needs – efficient, fast, reliable, and precise.   
• Sampling systems for various samples matrices like blood, saliva, cerumen, urine, nasal secretions, etc.

Benefit from our scientific expertise and industrial scalability. We deliver customized solutions for pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and academic partners, while continually looking to collaborate, grow our network, and learn from new challenges.

Discover our innovative microfluidic cartridge, specifically designed to process very small blood volumes. Using less than 50 µL of fingertip capillary blood, our system is minimally invasive and enables simple, reliable isolation of leukocytes and platelets.

Blood microsampling has grown in popularity due to its minimal invasiveness. It serves as an important alternative to venous blood sampling in pharmaceutical development and aligns with green chemistry principles and the 3Rs (reduce, refine, replace animal testing).

Your Benefit

• Integration into microsystems and point-of-care applications: Leverage our technology for rapid diagnostics at the point of care..
• Isolation of immune cells and platelets from small blood volumes: Conduct valuable biomolecular analyses from minimal samples..
• Test development and quality control: Support your research with precise, standardized tests.
• Sample standardization at low blood volumes: Optimize your studies through uniform sample processing.
• Cell and DNA analyses from micro-quantities: Obtain meaningful results even from the smallest samples.

Our Offer  

• Use our microfluidic cartridge to isolate white blood cells from small blood volumes.
• We tailor our technology to your requirements. Together with you, we develop customized solutions for processing small blood samples.

Our technology separates and stores plasma from a drop of capillary blood – quickly, reliably, and without a visit to the laboratory. For standardized results, capillary blood is collected in special capillaries and transferred to membranes. Patient-centered collection with integrated quality control reduces preanalytical errors, avoids repetitions and unnecessary tests, and combines the flexibility of sampling with the precision of specialized analysis. The membrane design retains cells while plasma flows laterally and is preserved dry. This allows samples to be sent securely by mail to the central laboratory. The system combines convenient sampling at home with precise, centralized diagnostics, reduces costs, scales across locations, and integrates seamlessly into telemedicine, while minimizing hemolysis-related false values (e.g., for LDH, AST, ALT). The low effort involved increases acceptance, expands access in rural areas, and is suitable for both routine examinations and screenings.

You Benefit

• Standardized preanalytics with quality control: Reduces variability in results and provides reliability for hemolysis-sensitive assays and precise protein/biomarker analyses. Faulty samples can be excluded.
• Dry storage: Stabilizes analytes and reduces transport artifacts.
• Decentralized sampling: Facilitates telemedicine as well as multicenter studies without clinic visits.
• Centralized evaluation and biobanking: Enables scalability and comparability of data.
• Minimally invasive sampling: Increases patient acceptance.

Our Offer  

• Utilize our technology for separating plasma from fingertip blood: Enables assays with minimal sample loss.
• We integrate hemolysis and quality control into your blood sample card: Allows for the exclusion of faulty samples and seamless quality control from sampling to laboratory analysis.

For the detection of specific bacterial infections via PCR, qPCR, or isothermal amplification, we offer robust, user-friendly sample preparation that provides extracted and concentrated bacterial DNA in a short time – without equipment-intensive workflows or specialized personnel. Our lysis filter module combines filtration, lysis, and elution in an open system. Bacteria are efficiently captured from the selected sample matrix and broken down to elute the DNA with minimal loss. The module is scalable and adaptable to the matrix and volume of your studies or programs, allowing it to fit seamlessly into your portfolio of existing assays and platforms.

Your Benefit

• Cost-effective pathogen detection: Minimal complexity at the sampling site, reduced equipment requirements, and lower overall costs.
• Shortened turnaround time and easy handling: Fast and user-friendly sample preparation on site leads to higher acceptance among patients and medical staff.
• Open system: Allows DNA extraction to be adapted to different sample matrices and coupled with existing detection systems.

Our Offer

• Use our lysing filtration module, customized to the volume and sample matrix of your choice, such as urine, drinking water, or wastewater.
• We design point-of-need demonstrators for on-site extraction of bacterial DNA.
• We seamlessly integrate our technology into your PCR/qPCR/isothermal assays to optimize turnaround time and reproducibility.

Cerumen serves as an alternative source for retrospective analysis and supports long-term status monitoring – beyond acute results. At Fraunhofer IZI-BB, we integrate cerumen as an innovative matrix for non-invasive diagnostics. Our process allows simple, fast on-site sampling and quality control with no lab required, accessible even to non-experts. The data obtained is digitally recorded for further prognoses and processed by our app, ensuring effective digital data analysis for AI-based validation.

Your Benefit

• Cerumen as a new matrix for on-site analysis: provides non-invasive diagnostics with minimal burden and greater patient acceptance than blood samples, facilitating repeated sampling.
• On-site lifestyle comparison study: offers valuable insights into lifestyle-health relationships, including prognostic value. This forms a basis for future health management and quality assurance.
• Continuous digital monitoring promotes customer loyalty: Use of cerumen for comprehensive, sustainable analyses beyond acute results.

Our Offer  

• We integrate cerumen as a new matrix into your portfolio to complement the sampling of  human matrices for safe and cost-efficient health monitoring. This enables fast and reliable analysis of parameters such as cholesterol, hormones, and drugs (therapeutic drug monitoring).
• Use our innovative sample swab – Streamlined sampling and improved analysis efficiency for more precise results.
• Use our device with an AI-based app to verify sampling success and standardize on-site collection.

Saliva can be collected painlessly and discreetly and contains numerous biomarkers also detectable in serum. Controliva is a novel on-site sampling system that provides quasi-sterile, cell-free saliva samples without centrifugation, stable for several days at 20–25 °C. This enables new quantitative assays for proteins, hormones, and vitamins that previously required blood – ideal for immunoassays, LC/MS, and enzymatic tests.

With Controliva, microbial contamination and matrix variability are a thing of the past. With our long-standing experience developing saliva-based immunoassays for illicit drugs and steroid hormones, we are the right partner for point-of-care and direct-to-consumer saliva tests.

Your Benefit

• Risk-free, highly accepted collection with privacy: ideal for direct-to-consumer and point-of-care tests; increases compliance among patients and healthcare staff. Free of genomic patient DNA – easy sample anonymization without risk of identification via DNA sequencing.
• Quasi-sterile, cell-free saliva samples: low-cost shipping at ambient temperature without a cold chain; supports decentralized studies and telemedicine.
• Reproducible sample matrix: defined volume and composition without mucus, sputum, or bacterial contamination; serum-like and highly compatible with established quantitative assays.

Our Offer 

• Controliva – the new saliva sampling system: delivers quasi-sterile saliva samples that remain stable for days and provide reproducible results.
• We develop robust saliva-based assays – qualitative or quantitative – optimized for Controliva samples. We design and optimize immunoassays using electrochemical, fluorescence, or colorimetric detection, including device integration, sensor geometry, and signal processing for reliable results.
• We advise on technology selection, validation strategy, and regulatory pathways for saliva-based diagnostics.

A urine bottle (urinal) with built-in filtration offers a convenient at-home collection solution, especially for urine cytology samples. It enables simple, hygienic sampling while concentrating cells, bacteria, and crystals for analysis. A compact, mobile design handles sample preparation and preanalytics, reducing lab or clinic steps and enabling independent, flexible collection. Integrated stabilization preserves sample stability during shipping, so it reaches the lab safely and cleanly. The system also supports cancer screening, tumor cell analysis, and isolation of urine-derived stem cells (UDSCs) for regenerative medicine and tissue engineering.

Your Benefit

• Efficient, flexible sampling: convenient at home.
• Optimized urine filtration: clean, hygienic sample preparation without a lab for precise analysis.
• Extended sample stability: stabilized for shipping and subsequent testing.
• User-friendly technology: easy to use; ideal for analyzing bacteria, cells, and crystals.
• Preventive health solution: supports cancer screening and lifesaving diagnostics.

Our Offer

• Efficient urine collection: our integrated urinal bottle enables simple, hygienic at-home sampling, reducing lab workload.
• Optimized sample preparation: gravity-driven filtration effectively concentrates cells and bacteria, enabling at-home collection and shipping.
• Flexible shipping: integrated stabilization maintains sample quality during transit, ensuring reliable delivery to the lab.

Image-Activated Cell Sorting (IACS) is set to revolutionize pharmaceutical development and cell line production through more specific cell isolation than ever before. IACS utilizes complex spatial markers for target cell identification such as cell morphology, co-localization, or compartment-specific protein uptake and expression, all captured and analyzed through advanced high-resolution imaging and artificial intelligence.  Thereby, IACS streamlines high-throughput screening processes and facilitates real-time monitoring of cellular responses to therapeutic agents. 

Your Benefit

• Targeted isolation of specific cell types based on morphological and functional characteristics
• High-resolution imaging enables label-free cell identification and isolation, facilitating the development of pristine production cell lines without alteration
• Rapid feedback on complex cellular responses allows for adjustments in the development process
• Identification and isolation of highly specific effector cells from heterogeneous cell populations
• Increased efficiency in high-throughput screenings through targeted selection of relevant cell types

Our Offer

• We tailor our cell sorting technology to your specific research questions and needs for use in your laboratory.
• We perform precise cell sorting according to your specific requirements to isolate your targeted cell population.
• We implement label-free cell isolation workflows to facilitate the development of untouched and unmodified cell lines.
• We stand as a competent partner by your side in the development of devices to integrate our cell processing technologies into your device infrastructures.

More Informationen 

• Image-Activated Cell Sorting