Plasma or serum - and which one??

 

Oldy but goodie that I'm putting here so that I can find it when I inevitably need it again.

Let's take this extreme example. I sold my plasma all through undergrad. I'd go in 2 times/week to unless I was sick or something and they'd put a big needle in my arm, pull out blood, separate out the plasma and put my blood cells and saline back into my body.

I'd watch cable, try not to listen to the people around me talking, because a lot of poor Americans are really really dumb - you might see this reflecting in our politics right now, and I'd leave with $20-$40 based on whatever promotion they were running.

When you buy bulk human plasma from a company - anything greater than about 3 mL - that is probably where it came from.

When you're doing clinical diagnostics that IS NOT how you get the plasma or serum. 

You're getting those from not-at-all confusing things like these. 

How much would it suck to find a really good diagnostic marker from a disease from plasma harnessed from volunteers by a live action plasma separation machine that could not be detected at all when samples are generated from centrifuge tubes? A lot? Yeah, a lot.