Flexible Tube Micro Plasma (FμTP) for Dried Blood Spot (DBS) analysis

The need and importance of newborn screening (NBS) is a reality in most of the western countries.

NBS helps with the detection and prevention of important health issues during neonates first days of life, avoiding growth or mental retardation or even potential deaths.

Even when each individual disorder has a low incidence into the population, their cumulative occurrence is relatively high, around 1 in 1,500 to 1 in 5,000.

Most of the NBS programs in western countries are well established but there is a constant need for new methodologies that can tackle more efficient, cheaper, faster, and simpler ways to analyze different disorders. SPOTplasma will help to address innovative methodologies for NBS.

Firstly, the project will tackle the idea of unaltered NBS sample analysis with no sample or minimal preparation steps considered as a kind of “Holy grail” for precious samples.

And secondly, during SPOTplasma a platform based on ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) will be investigated as an alternative for newborn screening in developing countries, barely implemented due to the lack of well-equipped infrastructures in their public system along with the high costs associated with MS instrumentation.

In conclusion, SPOTplasma will address dried blood spot (DBS) analysis by developing analytical tools that can speed up the screening process or cheapen the analysis.

Novel methodologies based on a flexible Tube Micro Plasma (FμTP) coupled to mass spectrometry (MS) and stand-alone IMS are proposed for DBS analysis not only for NBS but also in the pharmacological industry.