The hope is that this technology can provide researchers with the information they need to study marine mammal health using a fraction of the amount of blood traditional methods require. The dried blood spot cards only require a few drops, compared to five to 20 milliliters of blood.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be helpful if we could reduce the volume of blood that we need,\u201d Levin says.<\/p>\n The technology is simple: researchers draw blood from the animal using a needle, apply three to five drops to each dried blood spot card, and store it until they get back to the lab where they can test the sample.<\/p>\n This technology has been used for decades in human medicine; for example, to take samples from infants who cannot have large amounts of blood drawn. But is has not yet been validated for the study of marine mammals.<\/p>\n Reducing the amount of blood they need to collect means researchers could spend less time handling the animals, which would cause less stress for the animal.<\/p>\n Further, it is not uncommon for the blood taken by one research team to be used to address multiple research questions. If researchers need less blood to test for contaminants and pathogens with this new method, a single sample could be spread around to support more research.<\/p>\n This method could also be useful for studying smaller animals or very sick animals, when researchers cannot take as much blood. For example, Levin says researchers can safely take up to 50 milliliters of blood from a seal, the animal he works with most frequently, but far less from small animals like a bat or fish.<\/p>\n \u201cFor small animals, something that you couldn\u2019t get a lot of blood from, it would be an advantage to have a technology where you only need a couple of drops of blood,\u201d Levin says.<\/p>\n Another major benefit of this technology is that it does not need to be refrigerated.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s important, because you may not always have access to refrigeration or electricity,\u201d Levin says. \u201cWhen we go out into the field, sometimes we just don\u2019t have that, so on filter paper it\u2019s easier.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/CZ1A9134-300x240.jpeg\")