Abstract

Development of a Low-Cost and Minimally Invasive Absorbent Microbiopsy for Skin and Blood Sampling

Benson U Wang Lei, Faculty of Medicine, University of Queensland

The goal of this study is to address the unmet clinical need of a rapid and controlled micro-extraction method for precise blood and skin sampling. With laser cutting and 3D printing technologies, we are developing a minimally invasive skin and blood sampling device, absorbent microbiopsy, with medical-grade materials, aiming to facilitate the molecular detection of early signs of skin diseases. Due to its simple design, our device can be fabricated at a low cost and will not require extensive training. Preliminary data also suggested that our device was able to collect small pieces of skin tissue and 7±3ng of RNA. Nevertheless, the variation in blood absorption remains a challenge in the study, and a large-scale clinical study is highly desired in order to evaluate the reliability of our device. Once these problems are addressed, the device has the potential to offer a low-cost, simple and standardized molecular diagnostic platform for early disease detection as an alternative to the existing approach.