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Dried blood spots are used to collect and archive proteins and DNA on filter paper for small volumes of blood, like those used in newborn screening.
Every time we think "surely we can improve on this" result = more expensive, complicated, less stable
...& don't call me Shirley.
Every time we think "surely we can improve on this" result = more expensive, complicated, less stable
...& don't call me Shirley.
The first step in extraction from DBS (dried blood spots) is the highly sophisticated tool called a "Hole" "Punch".
Again, not a lot of room for innovation, although there are automated and sterile hole punch devices.
Again, not a lot of room for innovation, although there are automated and sterile hole punch devices.
My only real complaint is scale-up. It takes a few hours (3-4) for a recent punch collection to dry enough for handling/shipping/archiving, so for high throughput operations, there's value in having a drying area with lots of square footage.
It always seems a little odd to use a cheap piece of bloody paper in a $3M tandem mass spec, but there's a lot of that in science and diagnostics.
