Master's thesis of Science: Advancing the collection and storage of blood micro-volumes for downstream applications

The thesis is structured as follows: Chapter 1 reviews the literature and outlines the importance of blood, clinical use of blood, current methods of blood collection including alternative methods and the benefits of DBS. Chapter 2 summaries the overall methods used in the project. Chapter 3 explains the utility of hemaPEN® from both the collection and analytical perspective. Chapter 4 expands on the HCT bias associated with standard DBS method. Chapter 5 expands on the use of DBS in other fields such as genomic and epigenomics. Chapter 6 outlines the conclusions for each chapter and summaries the overarching conclusions.