New technology aims to reveal whether hospital blood bags contaminate patients with microplastics
Only a few years have passed since science conclusively established that microplastics circulate in the human bloodstream. But just how extensive is this contamination? With a new grant, researchers from the University of Southern Denmark, Odense University Hospital and Rigshospitalet, aim to automate the search for answers and investigate whether the healthcare system’s own blood banks could be part of the problem.
Let us turn the clock back to 24 March 2022. On that day, a striking piece of news dominated headlines around the world: microplastics had been found in human blood.
What was once considered a theoretical risk had now become a measurable reality. Yet here in 2026, we still lack clear answers as to how much microplastic we carry in our bodies – and, crucially, where it comes from.
One reason is that manually analysing blood samples for microscopic foreign particles is both time-consuming and costly. With funding from MedTech Odense, researchers Ayoub Laghrissi and Jacek Fiutowski from the Mads Clausen Institute, Associate Professor Aljaz Kramberger from SDU Robotics, The Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute, and Professor Vibeke Andersen from OUH are therefore developing a robotic platform to screen blood samples at a previously impossible scale.
The blood will be provided by Professor Ole Birger Vesterager Pedersen, Department of Clinical Immunology, Zealand University.
The challenge is no longer detecting the plastic but handling the sheer volume of data.
- We were recently contacted by a hospital department that wanted to test 2,000 samples as part of a study. When we did the calculations, we realised that with the current manual method it would take two and a half years to complete, says Ayoub Laghrissi.
The new robot is designed to remove precisely this barrier by automating the process, allowing thousands of sampling points to be analysed systematically without human intervention.
Today, donated blood is stored in plastic bags, and the researchers want to determine whether the packaging itself may be a source of contamination.
- We are interested in how the plastic in the bags may degrade over time. Does the microplastic originate from the donor’s own bloodstream, or does it migrate from the bag into the blood while it is in storage? This is critical knowledge before we transfuse the blood into patients, explains Associate Professor Jacek Fiutowski.
If storage is shown to contaminate blood, hospitals may be forced to rethink how they store their most vital bodily fluid.
By automating the analyses and generating a robust dataset, Ayoub Laghrissi and Jacek Fiutowski aim to provide the chemical evidence needed to distinguish between background noise and genuine health risks.
What was once considered a theoretical risk had now become a measurable reality. Yet here in 2026, we still lack clear answers as to how much microplastic we carry in our bodies – and, crucially, where it comes from.
One reason is that manually analysing blood samples for microscopic foreign particles is both time-consuming and costly. With funding from MedTech Odense, researchers Ayoub Laghrissi and Jacek Fiutowski from the Mads Clausen Institute, Associate Professor Aljaz Kramberger from SDU Robotics, The Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute, and Professor Vibeke Andersen from OUH are therefore developing a robotic platform to screen blood samples at a previously impossible scale.
The blood will be provided by Professor Ole Birger Vesterager Pedersen, Department of Clinical Immunology, Zealand University.
From full-time equivalent to an assembly line
The technology behind the project is known as SERS (Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering). By illuminating a blood sample with laser light, researchers can read a unique chemical fingerprint that reveals the material’s composition.The challenge is no longer detecting the plastic but handling the sheer volume of data.
- We were recently contacted by a hospital department that wanted to test 2,000 samples as part of a study. When we did the calculations, we realised that with the current manual method it would take two and a half years to complete, says Ayoub Laghrissi.
The new robot is designed to remove precisely this barrier by automating the process, allowing thousands of sampling points to be analysed systematically without human intervention.
Does the bag contaminate the blood?
However, the project is about more than efficiency alone. In collaboration with Rigshospitalet’s Blood Bank, which holds the country’s most extensive collection of blood samples, Laghrissi and Fiutowski will test a hypothesis with far-reaching implications for the healthcare sector.Today, donated blood is stored in plastic bags, and the researchers want to determine whether the packaging itself may be a source of contamination.
- We are interested in how the plastic in the bags may degrade over time. Does the microplastic originate from the donor’s own bloodstream, or does it migrate from the bag into the blood while it is in storage? This is critical knowledge before we transfuse the blood into patients, explains Associate Professor Jacek Fiutowski.
If storage is shown to contaminate blood, hospitals may be forced to rethink how they store their most vital bodily fluid.
Challenging poor science
Another ambition of the SERSbot project is to bring solid evidence into a debate that is often characterised by fear and uncertain data. According to the researchers, some existing studies of questionable quality claim that plastic is found in vital organs without sufficient documentation.By automating the analyses and generating a robust dataset, Ayoub Laghrissi and Jacek Fiutowski aim to provide the chemical evidence needed to distinguish between background noise and genuine health risks.