The centrifuge is one of the most commonly used instruments in the clinical laboratory; nevertheless, some form of the centrifuge has been around since the 1400s, long before what we now recognize as clinical laboratories. However, it wasn’t until the 1800’s that the first commercialized version of the centrifuge appeared. Primarily these early centrifuges were used in the dairy industry.
The first person to discover the analytical power of the centrifuge was Friedrich Miescher, a Swiss physician and biologist. In 1869 he adopted a crude centrifuge for laboratory use to isolate nucleic acids from the nuclei of white blood cells. His work quickly attracted attention which led to the development of the continuous centrifugal separator in 1879 and subsequently to the widespread commercialization of the technology. Advancements in the 1900s and 2000s in design, materials, and technology have brought vast improvements and variety to both commercial and clinical centrifuges, which include enhanced safety, better ergonomics, and reliable performance.
