IBM 2997

The earliest roots of IBM's development of the IBM 2997 Blood Cell Separator lay in the personal tragedy of one of IBM's development engineers, George Judson. One of his children contracted leukaemia shortly before Judson was due for a sabbatical, funded by IBM, working on a research project of his own choice. The research project he chose was to develop a device (the IBM 2990) which could harvest white cells from donors, to support leukaemia patients – to keep them alive. The subsequent development of this machine as the IBM 2997, which was essentially a high speed continuous centrifuge which separated the blood into red cells, white blood cells (used to support leukaemia patients) and plasma (in this case used in plasmapheresis), was picked up by IBM's Systems Supplies Division (SSD); which was already ready marketing the IBM 2991 Blood Cell Washer - once more because the (disposable) supplies element represented a large part of the revenue stream.