(396a) Immunomagnetic Cell Separation: Fundamentals, Current Issues, and Future Potentials

Magnetic separation technology (both cell and molecular) has grown in the last two decades from a research curiosity to a commercial industry which has been estimated to have commercial sales greater than $100 million dollars a year. Fundamental to most magnetic separation technologies is a magnetic force, be it attractive (i.e. paramagnetic, superparamagnetic, ferromagnetic) or repulsive (i.e. diamagnetic) that is derived from a gradient of the magnetic field. Consequently, ?micro? or ?nano? applications are uniquely suited to exploit these small length scales since the magnetic force increases linearly with the increase in a magnetic gradient. Since it is usually desirable to maximize the driving force of any separation technology, one can increase the magnetic force by either increasing the magnetic field, increasing the magnetic gradient, or some combination of both.

This presentation will attempt to summarize/review the fundaments governing and controlling magnetic separation, review current commercial technology with respect to performance capability and limitations, and outline future potentials based on these fundamental principles.