Lit Lit Review: Mini-dabbing or Mini-blood Analysis?

Hey readers!

Happy Labor Day! And we all know Labor Day means two things -- football is back, and it's time to review some literature...

This baby's love of football equals my love of literature reviews?

This week, we learned the essentials of a literature review, I worked on compiling and reading some sources, and the legend of the mini-dab was created. Since both microliter blood analysis and mini-dabbing are compact, smaller, and better versions of original blood analysis and dabbing respectively, mini-dabbing is the theme of this week's post!

Mini-Dab Nation, aka 6th Period AP Research.

Let's first look at my plan for my literature review. Last week, I outlined the subtopics into which my subtopic divides: Blood Diagnostics, Super-Hydrophilic Films, Analysis Techniques, Blood Properties, Substrates, and Key Illnesses/Conditions. These are the main sections I am envisioning for my literature review as well.

By using information about the limitations and consequences of current blood analysis techniques (e.g., hospital-acquired anemia from using large volumes of blood), I can establish the significance of my research with HemaDrop. Also, the subtopics are component parts of the research, which will still allow me to learn a lot and talk about pertinent information even though the research is pretty new and hasn't been explored yet. My plan is to investigate the viability of HemaDrop as a method for microliter blood analysis, but the information I find in my review of the literature on analysis techniques, substrates, and key illnesses/conditions will guide specifically what I will compare in my methods for my experiments.

When your list of goals triggers you hard.

Therefore, my literature review will serve the following purposes (inside the parentheses are the goals of a lit review about mini-dabbing): 

1. establish the limitations of current blood analysis techniques (basically the inadequacies of the current dab), 
2. demonstrate the need for and potential of microliter blood analysis (when you are in a confined space and are triggered), 
3. lay out the necessary criteria that a blood analysis technique must meet to be commercialized e,g., accuracy of current, large-volume methods (what will it take for mini-dabbing to go viral?),
4. explain the mechanisms of HemaDrop including super/hyper-hydrophilicity and phase separation (how the mini-dab mirrors the original dab), 
5. characterize the properties of blood when drying clotting in vitro compared to in vivo (I gave up trying to find parallels here)
6. find out normal/average human blood and canine blood composition  
7. determine pros/cons of various analysis techniques and find analysis techniques (vacuum-based) that HemaDrop samples can be used with to determine new information about blood composition (potentially via computer simulations first before testing),
8. and choose several key illnesses with specific markers in the blood for testing (methods could include comparative testing by adding markers to the blood).

This is also the order I will approach the subtopics in my lit review. One aspect of my literature review I have to be careful about is making sure my sources are in conversation, since the subtopics are all united seemingly only by HemaDrop. 

One specific source which I particularly enjoyed reading and which will definitely help me establish a gap in the research is "Senses, Sensors and Systems: A Journey Though the History of Laboratory Diagnosis" by Barthels and many other authors. "Senses, Sensors, and Systems" provides a thorough history of advances in laboratory diagnostics. I focused on the elements relevant to blood analysis.

First, the sections on blood lines and coagulation diagnostics explain the "cascade-and-arrest" mechanism of clotting of blood. Specifically, it explains all the proteins and triggering chemicals involved (fibrinogen, fibrin, thrombin, prothrombin, protein S, ionized Ca, etc.). The book even discusses the differences between in vivo (in the body) and in vitro (in lab settings) clotting. Next, it discusses near-patient diagnostics (point-of-care testing). For instance, it established the need for rapid identification of troponin concentration for heart attack patients. 

It even provided examples of physical concepts used in POCT. Finally, it discusses the requirements of all microtechnology that is POCT and stipulates the needs of blood diagnostics (use whole blood instead of just platelets or serum, yields quick results with high accuracy, uses small sample volumes, is simple to operate, has in-built quality control and minimal maintenance, and has an IT interface). Also, it cites a lot of articles in references about current methods of blood diagnostics which I had never heard of (e.g., dried blood spot chromatography), so I will look at those as well. Simply, the gap in the research is a device that fulfills those criteria.

Another exciting development is that my dad said he could arrange for me to meet up with/interview a pathologist and phlebotomist at his hospital to find out more about current blood analysis techniques. I'll keep you guys posted on that, as it becomes more concrete, but that information will be crucial for my literature review.

Finally, I'm all in for the John Oliver retort, as it would give us a chance to use our skills from Seminar and Research in a fun, engaging way. I'd be willing to work harder outside of school.

See you next week for some more great research!

Cheers,
YP

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