SamPi - A Simple Integrated Blood Draw and Processing Tool

Jeroen Lammertyn, Jaroslav Belotserkovsky, and Michael Kraft of KU Leuven in Belgium will develop a low-cost device to simplify blood collection and processing for monitoring of HIV viral load in low-resource settings. Most diagnostic assays work on blood, which must be manually collected from the patient, and then processed and stored before analysis. This requires trained health workers and infrastructure, is time-consuming, and can be unsafe. They will develop a simple, integrated device to collect and process blood. This will allow blood collection to be less invasive and safer than conventional methods, and integrating collection and processing in a single device would cut the time needed to produce diagnostic-ready samples. Because of the simplicity of the device, only minimal training is required to operate it. They will optimize their device for the removal and preparation of sufficient volumes of blood for subsequent analysis, and test it in model systems.