Ortho Pharmaceutical Corporation

Noel Rolon

William Pagels

Richard L Egan

The invention provides for a method of making more than one punchout from a single dried blood spot. The method comprising the steps of making a first punch and sequentially making at least a second punch in the dried blood spot. The second punch comprises boundaries which are at least partly outside of the boundaries of the first punch. The surface areas of the first punch and second punch are together equivalent to the minimum surface area required for testing of the dried blood spot.

Method of sampling bodily fluids

A punch assembly for punching samples of dried blood spots (DBSs) from paper card samples includes: a base member, a cartridge and at least one cutting pin. The base member includes a bottom platform having an upper surface defining a track therein, an upper platform, at least one support post disposed between and spacing the bottom platform and the upper platform, a biasing element for biasing the upper platform in a direction away from the bottom platform, and a mechanism associated with the base member for moving the upper platform toward the bottom platform. The upper platform is slidably connected to the at least one support post such that the upper platform is movable therealong with respect to the bottom platform. The cartridge functions to hold an object to be punched and at least one cutting pin. The cartridge defines at least one hole therethrough for receiving the cutting pin. In addition, the cartridge is sized to be received in the track defined in the bottom platform. In use, the lever is moved against the upper platform to force the cutting pin through the object held in the cartridge to thereby create a punched object.

Mechanical punch apparatus and method of using same

An apparatus and method for automatically identifying, handling, tracking, and processing dried blood samples in HIV-1 testing are disclosed. Dried blood samples are punched from test cards into incubation receptacles for incubation and further testing. Optionally, the location on the test card to be punched may be manually, semi-automatically or automatically selected, ranked, and punched in order of preference. Test results corresponding to a particular test subject are automatically tracked and reported while maintaining the anonymity of the subject.

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Belle Mead, NJ, United States of America

Noel Rolon