title: Drone Transport of Microbes in Blood and Sputum Laboratory Specimens.
abstract: Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) could potentially be used to transport microbiological specimens. To examine the impact of UAVs on microbiological specimens, blood and sputum culture specimens were seeded with usual pathogens and flown in a UAV for 30 ± 2 min. Times to recovery, colony counts, morphologies, and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS)-based identifications of the flown and stationary specimens were similar for all microbes studied.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA tamukele@jhmi.edu.
authors.forename: Timothy K
authors.initials: TK
authors.lastname: Amukele
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
authors.forename: Jeff
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Street
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Carroll
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
authors.forename: Heather
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
authors.forename: Sean X
authors.initials: SX
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D001769:Blood / Q000382:microbiology*; D006801:Humans; D008828:Microbiological Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D013048:Specimen Handling / Q000379:methods*; D019032:Spectrometry, Mass, Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption-Ionization; D013183:Sputum / Q000382:microbiology*; D014186:Transportation / Q000379:methods*