Researchers showed that the drone successfully transported human blood samples during the three-hour flight.
Successfully transporting biological samples is sometimes hampered by Mother Nature thanks to factors like hot weather, long distances, and rough terrain.
Enter drones, which Johns Hopkins researchers just showed can successfully transport human blood samples across 161 miles of Arizona desert, setting a new delivery distance record in the process.
The drone flight was three-hours long, and throughout, an on-board payload system designed by the Johns Hopkins team maintained temperature control, ensuring the samples were viable for laboratory analysis after landing, according to a report of the findings, published in the American Journal of Clinical Pathology.
"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," Timothy Amukele, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the paper's senior author, said in a statement.
Other research earlier this year reached a similar conclusion: A JAMA study showed that a drone hauling an automated external defibrillator drastically reduced emergency response times by an average of 16 minutes for simulated out-of-hospital cardiac arrest cases.
The Johns Hopkins research team wanted to determine the stability of biological samples after a long drone flight, and studied 84 chemistry and hematology samples from 21 adults.
Half of the samples were held stationary in a car at the airfield that had active cooling to maintain their target temperature. The other samples were flown for three hours in a contained temperature-controlled chamber in the drone.
After the flight, all samples were transported 62 miles by car to the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona. They were then tested for common chemistry and hematology tests.
Flown and not-flown samples showed similar results for red blood cell, white blood cell, and platelet counts and sodium levels, among other results.
Statistically significant but small differences were seen in glucose and potassium levels, which also show variation in standard transport methods (e.g. automobile transport). These differences were due to chemical degradation from slightly warmer temperature in the not-flown samples.
The flown samples were also cooler: They had an average temperature of 24.8°C (76.6°F), compared with 27.3°C (81.1°F) for the samples that weren’t flown.
"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."
The research team previously studied the impact of drone transportation on the chemical, hematological, and microbial makeup of drone-flown blood samples over distances up to 20 miles, and found that none were negatively affected.
The team plans further and larger studies in the United States and overseas.