How is the sample taken?
All that is required is a small needle prick of your newborn baby’s heel or your child’s finger to obtain a drop of blood. The blood is spotted onto special filter paper. The sample is then placed in a special envelope, sealed, and given directly to you for safekeeping. What should I do with the sample? Only you, the parent or guardian, has this sample. We recommend that you place the sample in a safe, dry place. Once sealed, this pouch should not be opened unless DNA testing needs to be done. Exposure to air and light can cause the DNA in the bloodstain to break down. Although the sample may be kept sealed at room temperature, you may consider keeping it in your freezer for the best possible storage conditions. How long does the sample last? Your child’s DNA will not change over the course of his or her life. If the pouch remains sealed, the sample should last for many, many years.
Taking the sample is simple and painless, just read the directions carefully and don’t hurry. The kit arrives by mail and contains three plastic sticks rather like small toothbrushes, without the bristles. You take the sample by rubbing the inside of your cheek with the stick, then dropping the detachable tip into a vial. You take the samples at least eight hours apart. Then put the vials in the provided mailer and return the kit by mail.
The particles are sampled using a selected volume of air. Because particle counters were first developed and manufactured in the U.S., the first standards [7] developed were imperial and a sample volume of 1 cubic foot became accepted internationally as the standard volume, as it conveniently took 1 minute to complete. However, a lot of countries developed their own standards and countries in Europe used metric volumes so the 1 cubic meter sample came about. Depending on what standard is followed, the sample is taken and the concentration of particles per volume is displayed on the screen of the particle counter. Normally the size of particle is shown with the corresponding number of particles. The pharmaceutical industry is mostly interested in the reporting of two sizes: =0.5µm and =5.0µm, as these ranges contain the microorganisms that will have an adverse effect on the sterility of the product. This information is then recorded, printed or downloaded and the data interpreted based
Collecting a sample for the test simply requires you to gently rub a swab on the inside of the cheek to collect cells. The swab is then sent back to our laboratory where DNA is extracted from the cheek cells and analyzed for the presence of the Arg and Gly genetic variants which determine your response to albuterol. This method determines your genetic variant with over 99% accuracy.
