image: Design of the automated blood testing and analysis device. The main subsystems include a veni-puncture robot, sample handling module, and blood analyzer. view more
Credit: Max Balter, Ph.D. of Rutgers University
Researchers from the Biomedical Engineering Department at Rutgers University have developed an end-to-end blood testing device that integrates robotic phlebotomy with downstream sample processing. This platform device performs blood draws and provides diagnostic results in a fully automated fashion at the point-of-care. By reducing turnaround times, the device has the potential to expedite hospital work-flow, allowing practitioners to devote more time to treating patients. The research has been published in a paper in the June 2018 issue of TECHNOLOGY.
Diagnostic blood testing is the most commonly performed clinical procedure in the world and influences the majority of medical decisions made in hospital and laboratory settings. However, manual blood draw success rates are dependent on clinician skill and patient physiology, and results are generated almost exclusively in centralized labs from large-volume samples using labor-intensive analytical techniques.
To address these issues, the team of researchers at Rutgers University created a device that includes an image-guided venipuncture robot, to address the challenges of routine venous access, with a centrifuge-based blood analyzer to obtain quantitative measurements of hematology. In the paper, results are presented on a white blood cell assay, using a blood mimicking fluid spiked with fluorescent microbeads. Studies were conducted on the integrated device -- from blood draw to analysis -- using blood vessel phantoms, demonstrating both high accuracy and repeatability of the cannulation and resulting white blood cell assay.
"This device represents the holy grail in blood testing technology," stated Martin Yarmush, M.D., Ph.D., the paper's senior author. "Integrating miniaturized robotic and microfluidic systems, this technology combines the breadth and accuracy of traditional laboratory testing with the speed and convenience of point-of-care testing."
"When designing the system, our focus was on creating a modular and expandable device", stated Max Balter, Ph.D., first author of the paper. "With our relatively simple chip design and analysis techniques, the device can be extended to incorporate a broader panel of assays in the future".
###
Additional co-authors of the TECHNOLOGY paper are Josh Leipheimer, Alvin Chen, Ph.D., Anil Shrirao, Ph.D., and Tim Maguire, Ph.D., all from the Biomedical Engineering Department at Rutgers University.
This work was primarily funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health under award number R01-EB020036.
Corresponding author for this study in TECHNOLOGY is Max Balter, Ph.D., balterm53@gmail.com.
For more insight into the research described, readers are invited to access the paper in TECHNOLOGY.
Picture:
Caption:
Figure 1. Design of the automated blood testing and analysis device. The main subsystems include a veni-puncture robot, sample handling module, and blood analyzer.
Fashioned as a high-impact, high-visibility, top-echelon publication, this new ground-breaking journal - TECHNOLOGY - will feature the development of cutting-edge new technologies in a broad array of emerging fields of science and engineering. The content will have an applied science and technological slant with a focus on both innovation and application to daily lives. It will cover diverse disciplines such as health and life science, energy and environment, advanced materials, technology-based manufacturing, information science and technology, and marine and transportations technologies.
About World Scientific Publishing Co.
World Scientific Publishing is a leading independent publisher of books and journals for the scholarly, research, professional and educational communities. The company publishes about 600 books annually and about 130 journals in various fields. World Scientific collaborates with prestigious organizations like the Nobel Foundation and US National Academies Press to bring high quality academic and professional content to researchers and academics worldwide. To find out more about World Scientific, please visit http://www.worldscientific.com. For more information, contact Tay Yu Shan at ystay@wspc.com.
Journal
TECHNOLOGY