Since first discovery of magnetism and magnets in ancient Greece and China, this phenomena has found its place in a wide variety of applications. Uses range from early use as a compass helping navigate uncharted and unknown waters, to modern medicine in early cancer detection.
Using Rare-Earth Magnetism to prepare tissue sample cultures
In conventional culture preparation, a tissue piece is disrupted by blending, mixing, emulsifying, dispersing, or stirring the tissue sample to achieve a consistent composition and structure throughout designated area.
The current processes or methods of homogenizing can be broken down into three (3) major categories, ultrasonic, pressure, and mechanical. Mechanical mostly uses high speed rotating blades
A prototype for homogenizing tissue samples (IE liver or brain) using rare earth magnets has been developed. The prototype was achieved homogenization of tissue samples with coated rare earth magnetic beads, set to chaotic motion by fluctuated the magnetic field created by permanent magnets attached to a rotating disc.
With this application any possibility of crosscontamination is eliminated , while significantly increasing the sample amount that could be homogenized at a same time (up to 20X).