7 DBS Solutions

Bert Ooms is principal scientist at Spark Holland and holds a degree in analytical chemistry. He has been involved in instrumental development of (U)HPLC and automated front-end sample handling for more than 30 years. As former head of R&D, research manager and new business development manager, he has been at the forefront of product innovation at every stage of his career.

Bert Ooms

1. Heat stabilization
   Problem: Degradation of analytes during drying due to enzymatic activity.
   Solution: Heat the samples for 30 secs. 
   Caveat: Degradation still occurred with three of six analytes tested.
   Reference: http://1.usa.gov/YrWqPb

1. Heat stabilization
    Problem: Degradation of analytes during drying due to enzymatic activity.
    Solution: Heat the samples for 30 secs.
    Caveat: Degradation still occurred with three of six analytes tested.
    Reference: http://1.usa.gov/YrWqPb
    
2. On-card derivatization
    Problem: Complex handling procedures are needed to derivitize thiols.
    Solution: Pre-treat cards with 2-bromo-3'-methoxyacetophenone, dramatically simplifying the workflow.
    Reference: http://1.usa.gov/17Jyppy
    
3. On-line desorption
    Problem: Direct desorption techniques suffer from ion suppression, Interference and low sensitivity.
    Solution: Online desorption to an SPE cartridge followed by online elution to LC–MS/MS results in excellent precision and linearity
    Next: Online full-spot analysis to circumvent spot-size variability caused by hematocrit variations.
    Reference: http://1.usa.gov/140R4uY
    
4. Therapeutic protein analysis
    Problem:
   Biopharmaceutical industry wants to reduce pre-clinical animal use.
    Solution: Direct enzymatic digestion of DBS followed by LC–MS/MS to identify signature peptides.
    Reference: http://1.usa.gov/12dvFxi
    
5. Paperspray MS
    Problem: Therapeutic drug monitoring with DBS tedious and difficult to automate.
    Solution: Spraying directly from triangle-shaped DBS paper into MS/MS provides adequate performance with simplicity.
    Reference: http://1.usa.gov/YrWw9H
    
6. Direct liquid junction DBS
    Problem: No single assay for both screening and diagnosis of  hemoglobin variants.
    Solution: Liquid junction-based extraction and direct infusion into high resolution MS.
    Reference: http://1.usa.gov/OmADpM
    
7. Colorless samples
    Problem: Colorless samples (e.g., liver microsome incubation) are difficult to visually inspect on DBS card.
    Solution: Spotting colored dye on card first indicates presence of samples as colorless patch.
    Reference: http://bit.ly/Yrsq69

Newsletters

Receive the latest analytical science news, personalities, education, and career development – weekly to your inbox.

I have read and understand the Privacy Notice*

Subscribe