4 ms·
What's the public health benefit to keeping blood samples around for so many years?
by tomjakubowski 4y ago
What's the public health benefit to keeping blood samples around for so many years?
- pc86 4y agoResearch is the big/obvious one.
- shagie 4y agoThere are diseases (particularly cancer) that can be detected before symptoms arise based on the changes in the methylation of the DNA present in cells in the plasma. To detect these, you need to have a baseline - the longer the better. For one such study, The Project Baseline Health Study: a step towards a broader mission to map human health --- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41746-020-0290-y https://www.nature.com/articles/s41746-020-0290-y > Further, while some participants’ samples have been assayed with a broad array of tests (Tables 2–4), participant samples will be stored for in depth testing at a later time when current assays are pertinent or new assays are available or new understanding of a disease process make performing a standard assay, not originally done, to be done on all or a sub-group of participants because of this new knowledge.