Could Drones Play a Role in Lab Operations?

Drones have been used by the military to fight terrorists, for hobbyists to buzz their neighborhoods and take video and photos, and may soon deliver goods from online retailers such as Amazon.

But a new study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University and Makerere University in Uganda has concluded that drones could also play a role in laboratory operations, possibly serving a crucial role in providing laboratory services to patients living in secluded and rural areas in the U.S. or in isolated regions of developing countries.

The researchers placed blood samples on hobby-sized drones to determine whether they would be affected by the altitude, hovering, and other elements of flying through the air, semi-exposed to the elements. Altogether, three paired samples were drawn from 56 adult volunteers, with tubes for chemistry, hematology, and coagulation testing. Half of the 336 total samples were kept stationary as a control. The other 168 samples were flown in a drone for between six to 38 minutes.

The flights were kept at an altitude below 100 meters (338 feet) and were performed in unpopulated areas within the line of sight of the remote pilot in order to conform with federal aviation regulations. At the end of the flights, 33 common chemistry, hematology, and coagulation tests were performed. Such tests comprise about 80 percent of all lab tests that are performed.

The results were surprising to the researchers: The blood tests could still be performed on the samples even after up to 40 minutes of drone travel, and there were no difference in the results when compared to the tests performed on the samples that did not leave the ground. That was despite the fact that such samples can be agitated by the gravity forces of a drone taking off, and the buffeting that occurs on landing. Most drones do not have landing gear, and therefore engage in controlled crash landings on their bellies instead.

"Such movements could have destroyed blood cells or prompted blood to coagulate, and I thought all kinds of blood tests might be affected, but our study shows they weren't," said Timothy Kien Amukele, M.D., a pathologist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and director of a lab collaboration between Johns Hopkins and Makerere, in an essay released by Johns Hopkins late last month.

The study's findings were published in PLOS One, an open access academic journal. It was peer reviewed by a researcher at Gentofte University Hospital in Denmark.

Amukele said the next phase of testing would likely be a pilot in Africa, where many clinics are dozens of miles from the nearest laboratory. "A drone could go 100 kilometers (60 miles) in 40 minutes," he said. "They're less expensive than motorcycles, are not subject to traffic delays, and the technology already exists for the drone to be programmed to 'home' to certain GPS coordinates, like a carrier pigeon."

Takeaway: Drones could play a role in delivery of laboratory specimens at some undetermined date in the future.