Members: Kong Tian Fook, Marcos, Nguyen Nam Trung
We developed a malaria diagnosis technique which combined microfluidics separation of malaria infected red blood cells (iRBCs) with magnetic resonance relaxometry (MRR) system. The iRBCs are separated from the uninfected healthy red blood cells (hRBCs) through a phenomenon known as margination. The stiffer iRBCs are marginated towards the sidewall while the hRBCs migrates to the axial center of the microfluidics channel. Due to the presence of paramagnetic hemozoin crystallites in the iRBCs, the transverse relaxation of iRBCs is significantly higher than that of the hRBCs.