Reducing Assay Reaction Volumes of Plasma and Serum for Hemoglobin Testing

Biomarkers and metabolites are compounds that can be measured in clinical patients that help inform physicians about the progression of various illnesses. Thus, detection of those compounds in plasma and serum is an area of current focus in biomedical research. Hemoglobin in a researcher’s samples can interfere with biomarker measurement, so it is important to determine the quantity of hemoglobin in those samples to accurately account for its effect on their results. The amount of hemoglobin contamination is measured in advance by reacting the plasma or serum samples with reagent and generating a color in the mixtures’ solutions. The intensity of those reactions are measured and reported as a unitless value and their averages, standard deviations, percent differences, and percent recoveries can be calculated. This reaction uses some of the sample, which is a limited resource. This project looks to confirm if the calculated statistics of samples are the same, even when a lower amount of samples are used. The sample and reagent volumes are tested at both full and reduced volumes, and then their results compared.