Plug-and-Play Centrifuge-Only Device for Rapid Sepsis Diagnosis

Sepsis is a time-critical condition causing over 13 million deaths annually, with each hour of treatment delay in patients with septic shock increasing mortality by 8%. Rapid pathogen identification is crucial, yet current workflows depend on multiple culture steps that delay pathogen identification and targeted treatment by days. A plug-and-play, fully automated centrifuge tube is presented that isolates and concentrates bacteria directly from blood or blood culture using only conventional lab centrifuges. Each tube can process 7.5 ml of sample and yields, within 40 min, a 0.7 mL clear suspension with greater than threefold enhanced bacteria concentration and $>$ 99.9% blood cell rejection, ready for downstream detection. It is demonstrated that this approach supports key diagnostic workflows, including 1) a novel isolate-then-culture strategy detecting bacterial concentrations as low as 10 CFU/mL; 2) direct matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF) identification, bypassing subculturing, and; 3) microfluidic single-cell detection. This fully automated platform is compatible with existing centrifuges, is anticipated to facilitate broader adoption in routine clinical practice, while its ability to enable rapid, same-workshift bacterial enhancement can reduce diagnostic time by about one day in the context of time-critical sepsis diagnostics.