Isolation of DNA from peripheral blood constitutes a fundamental step in the molecular diagnosis of genetic disorders, analysis of mutations of oncogenes and detection of nucleic-acid sequences of pathogenic organisms in clinical samples. We investigated whether dextran sedimentation of blood followed by the chromatographic isolation of DNA could be applied to the Biomek-1000 automated laboratory workstation in order to develop a fully automated method of DNA isolation from whole blood. Under our experimental conditions, the Biomek-1000 could perform fully automated DNA isolation from seven human whole blood samples in less than 1.5 h. Our data indicate that the DNA isolated from human blood in this way is suitable for polymerase chain reaction.