When using biomagnetic separation systems, customers are always curious about how to comply with the various health and safety regulations that are in effect. When customers use small systems for a small scale magnetic separation process, there is very little risk from the magnets. The only risk would be if the technician has a pacemaker and in that case, they would be extremely careful around even the smallest system. There is also a small risk of pinching one’s fingers between two magnets.
Lluis M. Martínez, SEPMAG Chief Scientific Officer
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When scaling up a process using a traditional magnetic separation rack, the percentage of bead and biomolecule losses significantly increases with an increase in volume. One way of dealing with this problem is by applying a higher force at longer distances. But for this to work, you must apply this greater force without increasing the forces in the retention area during the magnetic separation process, in order to avoid irreversible aggregation.
If one wants to scale up production from small lab lots to full-scale large lots, a non-homogenous magnetic separation process will result in lot-to-lot inconsistencies. Homogenous biomagnetic separation conditions, however, guarantee consistent results regardless of production scale.
Biomagnetic separation techniques are faster, cheaper and easier to use than non-magnetic techniques. In addition, when a magnetic separation process is performed under homogenous conditions, these techniques are also scalable and easily validated.
Due to the inherent properties of classic non-homogenous biomagnetic separators, beads can aggregate during the magnetic separation process. When this happens, technicians try to resolve the magnetic beads separation problem by using special resuspension techniques like the sonication method. But problems with resuspension can ultimately lead to end-product variability, especially if aggregation is not detected early.
Magnetic separation is a breakthrough technique for in vitro diagnostics (IVD). Scientists, hospitals and companies have taken advantage of the magnetic separation process for immunoassays, molecular diagnostic and genetic testing systems and kits. However, this type of technology is typically utilized by the end-user in very small quantities.
By Josep Maria Simó, CEO Sepmag
In-lot consistency is the key to reproducibility at the level of a kit. Unfortunately, in non-homogenous systems irreversible aggregation is one of the main sources of in-lot variability. If all of the beads are exposed to the same force as they are in homogenous magnetic systems, the risk of aggregation is greatly reduced. Because of this, it is important to know how to avoid irreversible aggregation problems during a magnetic separation process.
A recognized problem in the biomagnetic separation industry is that when one increases the batch size to scale up production of magnetic beads, the magnetic separation process time increases unproportionally to the increase in volume if one is working with standard magnetic separation devices.
