Samples for routine blood tests can be transported for as long as 40 minutes by small aerial drone without affecting laboratory results, Johns Hopkins researchers have demonstrated in a proof-of-concept exercise. This finding could open up access to testing in remote and poor corners of the globe, they reported in an article published Wednesday in the journal PLoS One.

The blood samples seemed minimally affected by travel, according to the research team, who were particularly concerned about the forces the drones experienced in launch and landing. “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, so that was cool,” lead investigator Dr. Timothy Kien Amukele, a Hopkins pathologist, said in a press release.

Amukele leads a Hopkins collaboration in laboratory medicine with Makerere University in Uganda. He said that these findings should lead to a pilot study in Africa. For this test, the researchers worked in an unpopulated area within an hour’s drive of the Johns Hopkins medical campus in Baltimore.

For more, watch this short video of a test flight.

Photo: Johns Hopkins Medicine