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Poster Session 1

Category: Genetics

Poster Session 1

(167) Simple and Sensitive Recovery of Trophoblasts for Cell-based NIPT

Wednesday, February 11, 2026

10:30 AM - 12:00 PM

Coauthor(s)

MC

Martin Cienciala, BS

Sampling Human Inc.
Berkeley, California, United States

Submitting Author and Presenting Author(s)

Christopher Kan, MBA, MS

Director, Head of Business Development
Sampling Human Inc.
Berkeley, California, United States

Coauthor(s)

DG

Daniel Georgiev, PhD

Sampling Human Inc.
Berkeley, California, United States

Objective:
Cell-free DNA (cfDNA) based non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) revolutionized screening for large chromosomal abnormalities. However, cfDNA’s fragmented nature and fetal fraction variation limit the detection of sub-chromosomal and single-gene defects. Cell-based methods, in contrast, isolate high-quality fetal genomes, but have historically been impractical and unreliable. The Spatial Docking platform (Sampling Human, Inc.) introduces a novel molecular targeting mechanism that simplifies genomic analysis of circulating trophoblast cells and, critically increases the yield and purity of the isolated fractions.

Study Design:
The Spatial Docking platform was benchmarked on peripheral blood samples combined with a fixed number of trophoblast cells (HTR-8/SVneo) at concentrations 1 in 3 x 104 cells to 1 in 3 x 106 cells. Samples were processed in one hour, and the isolated fraction was evaluated by immunofluorescence and genomic analysis. Trophoblast recovery and leukocyte contamination rates were calculated. The platform was further tested on clinical samples comprised of whole blood from three pregnant research participants 8-15 WG.

Results:
In benchmark experiments, trophoblast recovery exceeded 90% with leukocyte contamination less than 10 cells per mL of whole blood (Figure 1). The workflow was scaled to 10mL whole blood samples. For clinical samples, an average of 0.8 trophoblasts per mL of blood were recovered with similar leukocyte contamination of 2.2 nucleated cells/mL.

Conclusion:
Spatial docking is shown to be a viable method for fetal cell isolation, with performance metrics exceeding reported values for flow cytometry. Furthermore, the one-step protocol presents a simple solution that minimizes sample transfer and promises to exceed yields of more complex platforms integrating enrichment with imaging and single cell sorting.