You make serum by letting blood clot, then spinning out the clot. Serum has no clotting factors and no platelets. You make plasma by spinning anticoagulated blood, which keeps clotting factors and some platelet-derived proteins. Serum also holds extra proteins released during clotting, such as platelet-derived growth factor and TGF-beta, which can skew cytokine measurements. For multiplex cytokine and proteomic assays, EDTA plasma is usually the better choice.
Human Tissue & Biospecimens
Human Serum and Plasma Samples
Human serum and plasma samples matched to your assay development needs
Your choice of donor and anticoagulant sets your assay performance before you load a single pipette. That is why the right human serum or plasma matters for assay development, biomarker validation, or reagent qualification. Off-the-shelf options cover pooled normal matrices, sex- and age-characterised single-donor units, and disease-state sets with documented clinical context.
Human blood components available to you include off-the-clot serum, recovered plasma, and source plasma. You can specify blood group, anticoagulant (ACD, CPD, CPDA-1, heparin, EDTA, PAXgene), sex, and age. Plasma types cover heparin, sodium citrate, EDTA, and ACD fractions, plus platelet-poor, platelet-rich, fresh-frozen, and DNA-cleared variants.
Pooled AB serum is available in male-donor and mixed-donor options. Sterile-filtered pooled human platelet lysate is stocked as your cell culture supplement. Pooled human cord blood serum is available for specialised downstream use.
COVID-19-related blood products are available too, including donor sera and plasma characterised by isotype and titre for your serology and neutralisation assay development.
Serum and plasma types by application
1) Assay blank or limit-of-detection matrix. DNA-cleared plasma or pooled normal serum suits your cfDNA work, and a normal negative-control serum lot works for immunoassay blanks.
2) Immunoassay development with defined antibody isotypes. Individual COVID-19 serum samples chosen by isotype, including IgG-high, IgM-high, or IgA-high donor lots, let you calibrate by isotype and test cross-reactivity.
3) Multi-donor disease-state sets for validation panels. Characterised COVID-19 cohort sets with documented donor demographics are available, or you can specify custom pools with defined sex, age, and blood group criteria.
4) Cell culture supplement or ex vivo culture. Pooled human AB serum or human platelet lysate serves as a xeno-free media supplement, and specifying the lot keeps your results consistent across experiments.
5) Anticoagulant-specific plasma for nucleic acid or protein assays. You specify the anticoagulant (heparin, citrate, EDTA, or ACD) at order, and single units or pools come with blood group and donor options.
6) Cord blood serum for specialised applications. Pooled cord blood serum lots are available on enquiry.
Applications
Immunoassay development and matrix matching
Normal human serum or plasma works as your assay diluent and matrix blank, minimising interference when developing sandwich ELISA.
Infectious disease serology
Characterised donor serum panels with defined IgG, IgM, and IgA titres support your calibration of antibody detection assays and neutralisation test validation.
Cell-free DNA research
Carefully processed plasma from cell-free preservative tubes, with documented pre-analytical handling, works as your matrix for cfDNA extraction.
Ex vivo cell culture models
Pooled human AB serum or platelet lysate gives you a xeno-free supplement for primary cell culture and T cell expansion.
Demographic-controlled validation panels
Custom serum or plasma pools with defined sex, age, and blood group criteria support your biomarker validation studies needing matched controls.
Coagulation assay development
Citrate-anticoagulated plasma is the standard matrix for coagulation assays, since citrate reversibly chelates calcium without heparin's interference.
Frequently asked questions
Your anticoagulant affects analyte stability and downstream assay compatibility. EDTA plasma suits nucleic acid and most protein assays, because EDTA chelates calcium and inhibits proteases. Citrate plasma is standard for coagulation assays. Heparin carries over into nucleic acid extracts and interferes with PCR, so avoid it for cfDNA or RNA work. Lithium heparin plasma works with many immunoassays, but confirm that heparin does not interfere with yours.
Suppliers test donor samples against a panel of agents, including HIV-1/2, HBsAg, HCV, HTLV-I/II, and syphilis. Some assays may be FDA-cleared or CE-IVD, so confirm intended use and regulatory status for the specific product and jurisdiction. Some suppliers also test for West Nile virus, Chagas disease, and SARS-CoV-2. Screening can be negative and still miss agents, so handle all human-derived materials at BSL-2 conditions in line with your institutional biosafety policies.
Lot consistency matters for long studies, because inter-lot variation in protein concentration, lipid content, and haemolysis index can shift assay baselines. Where you can, reserve enough volume from a single well-characterised lot at the start. When a lot change is unavoidable, run a bridging experiment that compares overlapping samples from the old and new lots. This quantifies any systematic offset before you continue.
Product catalogs
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Tell us what you are looking for — antibodies, kits, proteins, or supplies — and our team will point you to the best catalog filters, suppliers, and product matches for your workflow.
