COVID-19 & INFECTIOUS DISEASE

Reduce aerosol generation from infectious samples to improve biosafety.

Technology

Process infectious samples in a biosafety hood.

Benefits

Prepare samples safely while reducing debris.

Scientific Data

See examples of cleaner samples.

Resources

Links to useful resources for infectious sample processing.

Overview

CHANGE THE WAY YOU PROCESS CELLS TO GET RELIABLY CONSISTENT DATA.

The World Health Organization Laboratory guidance for research on the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV2 states, "all technical procedures should be performed in a way that minimizes the generation of aerosols and droplets.”

Table 1. Risk prioritization of selected routine laboratory tasks
Task or activity	Exposure risk
Task or activity	Potential hazard	Likelihood	Consequence	Risk rating
Subculturing blood culture bottle	Needle stick — percutaneous inoculation	Likely	Infection; medical treatment	High
	Aerosols — inhalation	Moderate	Infection; medical treatment	Medium
	Splash — direct contact with mucous membranes	Moderate	Infection; medical treatment	High
Centrifugation	Aerosols — inhalation	Likely	Infection; medical treatment	High
Performing Gram stain	Aerosols from flaming slides	Moderate	Colonization; infection	Moderate
Preparing AFB smear only	Aerosols from sputum or slide preparation	Likely	Illness; medical treatment; disease	High
Performing catalase testing	Aerosols — mucous membrane exposure	Unlikely	Colonization; infection	Low
AFB culture work-up	Aerosols — inhalation	Likely	Illness; medical treatment; disease	High
Abbreviation: AFB = acid-fast bacillus.

Curiox Biosystems introduces a new, safer method for preparing potentially or known infectious blood samples for immune cell profiling without a centrifuge, eliminating aerosolization of potentially infectious samples. The method combines a new configuration of the Laminar Wash HT2000 system packaged with STEMCELL Technologies EasySep RBC depletion reagent to enable blood sample processing within a biosafety cabinet from start to finish.

This natural and gentle cell prep method relying on Laminar Wash technology improves viability, retention, and staining resolution of rare and sensitive immune cell subsets known to play crucial roles in the immune response against COVID-19 infections, like monocytes and neutrophils. Improvements in data quality due to reduced stress are evident even on fragile cells resulting from harsh methods such as red blood cell lysis that relies upon repeated centrifugation steps.

View Method Details

“The Laminar Washer is safer than flicking [minimizing exposure to infectious materials] and requires less space than centrifuges.”

Blanca Ponce-Ngo, Montefiore Medical Center

Traditional Centrifugation

VS

Laminar Flow Technology

Comparison of an immuno-staining workflow for the preparation of a single cell suspension for flow cytometry analysis. Laminar Wash technology is equally effective in washing but without the use of a centrifuge.

Benefits

LAMINAR WASH FOR SINGLE CELL SEQUENCING & PROTEOGENOMICS

The compact sizes of the Laminar Wash HT2000 and Laminar Wash MINI means easy containment in a biosafety cabinet. Laminar Wash technology can improve infectious disease sample preparation by:

Enhancing workflow safety through biosafety cabinet containment
Reducing aerosol production from samples
Reducing debris, background, and instrument clogging
Improving resolution and stain index

Featured Resource

Severe COVID-19 infection is associated with aberrant cytokine production by infected lung epithelial cells rather than by systemic immune dysfunction

View Publication

Scientific Data

DATA USING THE LAMINAR WASH SYSTEMS

LW is Gentle on Both Neutrophils and Monocytes

Laminar Wash technology was compared to centrifugation protocols in a 16-color immune profiling panel using 100μL of whole human blood. One-step washing using Laminar Wash minimized cell perturbations compared to multiple centrifugation steps, increasing retention of both the monocyte and neutrophil populations.

Better Debris Removal and Cell Retention

When performing cell dissociation in tumor-bearing tissues, tissue debris and enzymatic-induced fragments are primary factors affecting recovery of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs). For more invasive and immunologically challenging models, like B16F10-inoculated mice, recovery of limited numbers of TILs hinders accurate characterization. Here, Laminar Wash technology was compared to conventional methods for preparing an unchallenged mouse sample containing ~1,000,000 tumor infiltrate cells. Laminar Wash improved viable cell count and reduced debris formation. The cleaner sample preparation increased lymphocyte recovery up to 90.6%, compared to 10.5% for the centrifuge.
Data adapted from the Curiox Biosystems webinar by Dr. Christoph S. Eberle, Discovery Research Services at Charles River Laboratories, Worcester, MA