13 August 2009 - Spark Holland and Dilab have entered into a development partnership.
Under the terms of the agreement, Dilab's instrument for automated blood sampling (ABS) - the Accusampler Micro - will be adapted to accommodate Spark Holland's blood collection cartridges for direct processing in its Symbiosis system for online solid-phase extraction.
The result will be a highly automated workflow for pharmacokinetic studies with small lab animals.
The Accusampler Micro permits automated serial withdrawal of blood samples as small as 5ul up to 50ul from small lab animals, such as mice, for pharmacokinetic studies.
Adaptation of the Accusampler will enable users to place Symbiosis trays with blood collection cartridges in the Accusampler.
Trays with collected blood samples can then be placed directly in the Symbiosis system for online SPE-LC-MS analysis, without any further manual sample work-up.
The combination of collecting accurately measured small blood volumes and direct processing for online SPE-LC-MS allows serial blood sampling from small lab animals such as rats and mice, for an entire pharmacokinetic study with a single animal.
This will reduce the number of lab animals and result in better pharmacokinetic data.
In addition, throughput of pharmacokinetic studies is enhanced while providing more safety and fewer operator errors.
The Dilab ABS Accusampler Micro is compliant with the '3R' guidelines for animal welfare as issued by the National Center for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) in London.
