Johns Hopkins researchers have set a new delivery distance record for medical drones, successfully transporting human blood samples across 161 miles of Arizona desert. Throughout the three-hour flight, they reported, the onboard payload system maintained temperature control, ensuring the samples were viable for laboratory analysis after landing.
In a report published in the American Journal of Clinical Pathology, the researchers said the accomplishment adds to evidence that unmanned aircraft can be an effective, safe and timely way to quickly transport medical samples from remote sites to laboratories.
“We expect that in many cases, drone transport will be the quickest, safest and most efficient option to deliver some biological samples to a laboratory from rural or urban settings,” said Timothy Amukele, MD, PhD, assistant professor of pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the paper’s senior author.
“Drones can operate where there are no roads, and overcome conditions that disable wheeled vehicles, traffic and other logistical inefficiencies that are the enemy of improved, timely patient diagnoses and care,” Amukele said. “Drones are likely to be the 21st century’s best medical sample delivery system.”
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