In drug development the screening of a large number of blood samples is obligatory to determine the bioavailability, clearance, and safety margins of a certain drug substance in an organism.
In recent years the usage of dried blood spots (DBS) has gained increasing importance since this method shows strong advantages compared to the conventional collection and analysis of blood or plasma samples.
These advantages include the need for remarkably lower blood volumes and easier shipping and storage, often at ambient temperatures.
This leads to a simplification of the blood collection process and a reduction of the costs involved. Furthermore, in preclinical studies the number of test animals can be reduced (due to the need for lower blood volumes) which is in accordance with the 3R requirement of animal studies (replacement, reduction, refinement).For DBS analysis, typically 15 μL of the blood sample are spotted onto filter paper (DBS cards), dried, shipped to the laboratory and analysed by mass spectrometry (MS). Prior to MS analysis the blood sample needs to be extracted from the DBS card. This represents a major drawback of DBS since sample extraction from a high number of DBS cards is not yet automated and requires many processes to be performed manually. Hence, analysis of DBS is time-consuming and costly.
CAMAG Switzerland has developed a system for the automated extraction of DBS cards that can be coupled directly to the MS or LC-MS system.
