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Commissioned work - Capitainer (Sweden)

This section contains commissioned blog articles written for Captainer AB, a Swedish medtech company that develops and sells intelligent and highly precise solutions for self-sampling of blood, plasma, and urine.

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Capitainer •

Alzheimer's Blood Test: Why Don't We Screen for Early Detection? - Capitainer

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the leading cause of dementia, accounting for approximately 60-80% of all cases. Like other forms of dementia, AD is an incurable neurodegenerative condition that comes with progressive memory and language loss, confusion, mood changes, and severe cognitive decline over time. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, studies have found that 50% or more of patients with AD are not diagnosed until the moderate or advanced stage of disease, at which point they cannot benefit from new disease-modifying therapies. This highlights the urgent need for scalable early detection strategies including blood-based biomarkers to allow timely intervention and maximize the impact of emerging therapies.
Capitainer •

Dried Urine Sampling For Patient-Centric Kidney Health Management - Capitainer

In a previous article, we explored the possibilities for dried urine testing as an alternative to standard liquid urine testing, with a particular focus on patient convenience, sample stability, and accuracy. Here, we take a closer look at kidney function testing, specifically examining the key biomarkers that can be measured, the patient populations that benefit most, and how dried urine sampling could transform routine primary care screening through at-home sampling for patient-centric kidney health and chronic disease management.
Capitainer •

An Introduction to Hypothyroidism – Presentation, Causes, Diagnosis and Treatment - Capitainer

Hypothyroidism is an endocrine condition that occurs when the thyroid gland doesn’t produce and release sufficient thyroid hormone into the bloodstream. The condition typically develops slowly over many years, and while symptoms may not be obvious during the early stages, undetected and untreated hypothyroidism can lead to serious health complications over time, including high cholesterol, cardiovascular problems, goiter, nerve damage, infertility and others.
Capitainer •

An Introduction to PSA Testing for Prostate Cancer - Capitainer

PSA testing measures prostate-specific antigen levels in blood to screen for prostate cancer. While the test is highly sensitive, PSA’s limited specificity can lead to unnecessary biopsies since elevated levels may result from benign prostate conditions. Modern screening programs often combine PSA testing with digital rectal examinations and/or MRI imaging to improve diagnostic accuracy and reduce invasive procedures while emerging technologies such as at-home blood sampling are expanding testin...
Capitainer •

Heavy Metal Toxicity Explained - Capitainer

Heavy metals are a long-lasting environmental contaminant that can pose serious public health risks if not contained, because they can bioaccumulate in living organisms and persist in the environment. They occur naturally but human behavior, e.g., industrial and agricultural practices and the urban lifestyle, has greatly increased their abundance in the environment. While some heavy metals are essential for biological processes in trace amounts, many are toxic even at low exposure levels, affect...
Capitainer •

Publication highlight: Swedish study demonstrates compatibility of Capitainer self-sampling with Olink’s proteomics for large-scale health studies - Capitainer

To gain new insights about the long-term impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection, researchers in Sweden used a Capitainer self-sampling device to gather dried blood spot samples from random, consenting adults in 2020 and 2021. The study detected clinically-known markers for SARS-CoV-2 infection that align with described infection stages. It also highlights the power of a combined Capitainer and Olink workflow to analyse hundreds of proteins simultaneously and gain new insights into human health.
Capitainer •

Major kidney study featured in Scandinavian healthcare magazines

Capitainer is proud to see its blood self-sampling technology featured in leading healthcare publications in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.

The articles, which were published in Dialäsen (Sweden), Dagens Medisin (Norway) and Nefrologisk Tidsskrift (Denmark), highlight a major study carried out in Norway last year, which found that Capitainer’s volumetric dried blood spot sampling device, Capitainer®B, is suitable for routine monitoring of kidney transplant patients.
Capitainer •

An Introduction to Therapeutic Drug Monitoring and Possibilities With DBS

Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) is a clinical practice of measuring the concentration of a specific drug(s) in an individual’s bloodstream at set time intervals. The overall goal of TDM is to maintain a constant blood concentration at which a given drug is safe and effective. In this blog post, we introduce the practice of TDM and the advantages that dried blood spot testing has to offer as a microsampling method for TDM.

Guiding clinicians to find the ‘right’ dose and optimise treatment

TDM
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Publication Highlight: Major UK Study Finds That Capitainer Is Superior for PKU Monitoring Compared to Conventional DBS and Other Volumetric Microsampling Devices

A recent study carried out in the UK compared three commercially available volumetric blood collection devices with conventional dried blood spot cards for accuracy and precision, and applicability in the clinical laboratory. The study found that volumetric devices were superior to conventional DBS cards on all parameters tested, and Capitainer is the chosen device for implementation.
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Dried Blood Spot Testing - Part 2

Welcome back to our series about dried blood spot (DBS) testing. In Part 1, we provided an overview of what DBS is, how it is performed, and we touched upon some of its many applications. In Part 2, we will dig into how DBS may be used in the diagnosis and monitoring of infectious diseases.

In brief, DBS testing is a microsampling method that is based on dried spots of whole blood. The method arose through the work of American microbiologist Robert Guthrie in the 1960s who sought to develop new
Capitainer •

Dried Blood Spot Testing - Part 1

Welcome to our blog series about dried blood spot (DBS) testing, a microsampling method that is widely used to analyse molecules associated with human health and disease.

In this first instalment, you will learn about what DBS is, how it is performed and some of its applications. We will also compare the sampling methods used in DBS testing, and look at how recent developments in microsampling have transformed DBS testing into a highly accurate and robust method with vast applications in diseas
Capitainer •

Quantitative Serology Made Possible With ®qDBS

Dried blood spot testing is a microsampling method that has been utilised for qualitative or semi-quantitative analysis of hundreds of molecules, including nucleic acids, elements, small molecule drugs, proteins, enzymes and antibodies (1). When applied to blood testing in humans, DBS boasts many advantages over venous blood draws:
• It allows the collection of small quantities of whole blood via fingertip- or heel prick in a minimally-invasive manner without the need for a phlebotomist, thus im
Capitainer •

Global CRO Altasciences Evaluates ®qDBS Microsampling

Conventional dried blood spot testing (DBS) is a microsampling method that is widely used for qualitative or semi-quantitative bioanalyses, such as screening for the rare disorder phenylketonuria (PKU) in newborns. Capitainer®qDBS is the only microsampling device that ensures accurate and consistent blood volumes every single time. This greatly expands the possibilities for quantitative dried blood spot testing in various settings, including home sampling and remote sampling.

Altasciences, a co
Capitainer •

A New Gold Standard in PEth Testing

Phosphatidylethanol, mostly referred to as PEth, is a phospholipid biomarker of long-term alcohol consumption. PEth exists naturally in red blood cells, and its formation in the blood is catalysed by phospholipase D (PLD) in the presence of ethanol. PEth accumulates with frequent alcohol consumption and has a half-life in the blood of approximately 4 days (Helander et al., 2019).

PEth quantification is used to identify long-term alcohol consumption in diverse fields including occupational healt

Commissioned work - Tempo Bioscience (San Fran., US)

This section contains commissioned blog articles written for Tempo Bioscience (San Fran., US). Topics include in vitro disease models, blood brain barrier, liver disease, organoids and drug discovery.

Tempo Bioscience •

2D vs 3D Cell Culture: Choosing the Right Model - by Tempo Bioscience

In our last article, we compared 2D organ-on-a-chip devices and 3D organoids with respect to their use in drug discovery, highlighting their importance in modeling diseases and evaluating efficacy and safety during drug discovery and development . We also presented the major catch-22 challenge in disease modeling; disease biology is complex and developing a ‘good’ disease model requires a deep understanding of disease mechanisms and pathogenesis, both of which come through gathering Real-World E...
Tempo Bioscience •

Organs-on-Chips vs. 3D Organoids - Tempo Bioscience

To address the shortcomings of in vitro cell-based assays, such as those that rely on primary or immortalized rodent or animal cells, two popular solutions have emerged. These are the organ-on-a-chip devices and 3D organoids. This article will introduce both of these solutions and discusses the applications, benefits and drawbacks, and experimental complications of each. We hope that this overview will assist scientists in experimental planning and design.
Tempo Bioscience •

Human Podocytes and Proximal Tubules - Tempo Bioscience

In this article, we look at how podocytes and proximal tubules contribute to kidney fibrosis, which is a key end stage in most progressive kidney diseases, and explore their importance in drug-induced nephrotoxicity assessment. After a quick recap on kidney biology, we introduce kidney fibrosis and nephrotoxicity, providing a brief overview of what is known about how podocytes and proximal tubular cells respond to injury and their potential roles in kidney fibrosis. We also highlight how these specialized cell types serve as critical models for evaluating potential kidney damage during drug development.
Tempo Bioscience •

Human Liver Organoids as a New Model for Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

The lack of approved treatments for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and non-alcoholic steatosis (NASH) is largely explained by the shortcomings of cellular models used to unravel disease mechanisms, identify and validate new drug targets, and screen compounds for therapeutic potential. To address this problem, researchers at Hubrecht Institute in the Netherlands explored a novel approach to target discovery and compound screening for NAFLD, using prenatal human hepatocyte organoids as a model for mature human hepatocytes.