Broadly speaking, embodiments of the present techniques provide a liquid handling device that enables a user to more easily and efficiently perform sample dilutions, without requiring the user to perform any calculations or be in a controlled environment (e.g. a laboratory or sterile/aseptic environment). Advantageously, this may enable a user to perform sample dilutions and subsequent sample processing outside of a laboratory, such as during field work, or in environments, regions or countries where access to sterile/aseptic environments may be difficult or nonexistent. The device may be used to dilute any liquid sample, such as biological samples, chemical samples, or environmental samples (e.g. liquid samples taken from a river or lake, or soil samples that are mixed with liquid).

There is provided a piston of a cartridge for extracting nucleic acids comprising: a cylindrical upper body having a hollow; a lower body having two ports; a control rod module combined to the other end of the upper body to seal the other end and move up and down along the hollow; and a rotation control module that is combined to the shaft of the lower body to transmit a driving force to the lower body.

A sample collecting device is provided. The sample collecting device includes a frame, a collect part and a control part. The collect part is disposed in the frame and is provided with a collecting cavity having a collecting port, and the collect part is used to make a sample flow into the collecting cavity from the collecting port. The control part is disposed in the frame, used to make a collecting rod put into a reagent bottle be pulled out and inserted into the collecting cavity to thereby collect the sample, and used to make the collecting rod with the sample be pulled out from the collecting cavity and put back into the reagent bottle. The collecting of sample without manual intervention is realized, effectiveness and consistency of the collected samples are ensured, and the labor cost is reduced.

This disclosure describes single-use test cartridges, cell analyzer apparatus, and methods for automatically performing microscopic cell analysis tasks, such as counting blood cells in biological samples. A small unmeasured quantity of a biological sample such as whole blood is placed in the disposable test cartridge which is then inserted into the cell analyzer. The analyzer isolates a precise volume of the biological sample, mixes it with self-contained reagents and transfers the entire volume to an imaging chamber. The geometry of the imaging chamber is chosen to maintain the uniformity of the mixture, and to prevent cells from crowding or clumping, when it is transferred into the imaging chamber. Images of essentially all of the cellular components within the imaging chamber are analyzed to obtain counts per unit volume. The devices, apparatus and methods described may be used to analyze a small quantity of whole blood to obtain counts per unit volume of red blood cells, white blood cells, including sub-groups of white cells, platelets and measurements related to these bodies.

Disclosed in one aspect is a method for performing a complete blood count (CBC) on a sample of whole blood by metering a predetermined amount of the whole blood and mixing it with a predetermined amount of diluent and stain and transferring a portion thereof to an imaging chamber of fixed dimensions and utilizing an automated microscope with digital camera and cell counting and recognition software to count every white blood cell and red blood corpuscle and platelet in the sample diluent/stain mixture to determine the number of red cells, white cells, and platelets per unit volume, and analyzing the white cells with cell recognition software to classify them.

A blood pack donation system configured for use with a lab-on-a-chip device for biomarker collection during whole blood donation including a blood collection container, a biomarker collection container, a first flow path connected to an opening in the blood collection container and to a first outlet opening of a lab-on-a-chip device, a second flow path connected to an opening in the biomarker collection container and to a second outlet opening of the lab-on-a-chip device, and a third flow path connected to a needle and to an inlet opening of the lab-on-a-chip device. The system may be used in a single pass collection procedure. A second version includes a fourth flow path connected to the first flow path and to the third flow path, with a plurality of flow control components that selectively control flow to provide a single pass collection procedure or a multiple pass collection procedure.

One aspect of this invention relates to a vertical-via rotary valve including a valve body having a housing; one or more fluidic channels, each fluidic channel having a vertical channel portion defined in the valve body and being adjacent to the housing, wherein a fluid flow through the vertical channel portion is controllable by deforming a sidewall of the vertical channel portion; and an actuator received in the housing and rotatably engaged with the one or more fluidic channels to operably control the fluid flow through the vertical channel portion of each fluid channel.

A microfluidic device comprises: a sensor provided in a sensing chamber; a liquid inlet and liquid outlet connecting to the sensor chamber for respectively passing liquid into and out of the sensing chamber and; a sample input port in fluid communication with the liquid inlet; a liquid collection channel downstream of the sensing chamber outlet; a flow path interruption between the liquid outlet and the liquid collection channel, preventing liquid from flowing into the liquid collection channel from upstream; a buffer liquid filling from the sample input port to the sensing chamber, and filling the sensing chamber and filing from the liquid outlet to the flow path interruption; an activation system operable to complete the flow path between the liquid outlet and the liquid collection channel such that the sensor remains unexposed to gas or a gas/liquid interface.

Microfluidic systems, pumps, valves and applications of the same are provided. The microfluidic system may be a pump or a valve having a fluidic chip and an actuator controlling the opening and closing of the fluidic channel in the fluidic chip. The actuator may be disposed to tilt from the fluidic chip, forming a tilted-rotor peristaltic pump. Alternatively, the actuator may be a rolling ball actuator, and different fluidic chips may be used in different applications. For example, the fluidic chip may be a spiral pump chip having spiral channels, a rotary peristaltic pump chip having multiple output channels, or a multi-port valve chip having one port interconnected with multiple different ports. An analytical valve chip may switchably interconnect bioreactor and rinse/calibration input channels to sensor and waste output channels. The actuator of a random-access valve can move from one valve position to another without opening or closing intermediate ones.

Described herein are devices, systems, fluidic devices, kits, and methods for detection of target nucleic acids.