Singapore, March 26 -- Scientists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), have developed a coin-sized chip that can directly isolate blood plasma from a tube of blood in just 30 minutes, which is more convenient and user-friendly as compared to the current gold standard, multi-step centrifugation process.

Named ExoArc, in just one step, it can achieve high blood plasma purity by removing more than 99.9 per cent of blood cells and platelets precisely and gently. This will greatly speed up clinical analysis of the cell-free DNA and RNA molecules, as well as nanoparticles commonly known as extracellular vesicles. These particles are often used to screen for biomarkers that are tell-tale signs specific to certain canc...