“We are clearly getting there with the things we can do now with a few microliters of blood.” – Ian Wilson, Imperial College
Ian Wilson discusses his passion and vision to improve the human journey through streamlined testing workflows and high-quality data. We possibly only get one chance at this, and anything we can do to improve lives is very important. Looking at the full workflow, Ian believes that the community has clearly made strides to improving healthcare through collecting smaller volumes of blood. With 100 µL of blood, we can analyze the proteome, metabolome, and RNA without causing much damage to the patient. We are in a paradigm where we have technologies to improve patient care and Ian Wilson works to maximize workflows and results as quickly and efficiently as possible.
“We don’t want everyone to come stand in line. Just do it yourself at home.” – Christophe Stove, Ghent University
Christophe Stove talks about training the next generation of researchers that will drive microsampling and improving patient care. He has never felt like he is doing work, enjoys what he does, and gets to work on his hobby – feeling lucky that he has great students and collaborators. His lab designs new workflows with microsampling that can often be translated to hospitals or the clinic. Christophe has 20 years of experience in microsampling and can see increased adoption during the COVID-19 crisis. He asks the question: Why would you want people to come to an area to meet, if we can get the same sample at home at a micro level? Especially those that are at high risk. Acknowledging that not every condition can be tested in this way, but why not simply convert if we can?
“I think it is important to try to improve patient’s lives.” – Remco Koster, PRA Health Sciences
Remco Koster has continuously worked to improve patient care, starting in the transplant setting. While in the hospital, Remco asked the questions: What is the patient background? What is the struggle? What is the burden for the patients and blood sampling? Now, Remco focuses on microsampling technologies, and feels that he can contribute to patient care though this. Often, hospitals do not have the resources to work on new techniques for patients. Remco understands the challenges in a hospital environment and understands that technology still needs to be improved. There is always room for improvement, and we need to keep the long-term goal in mind – improving patient care.