Years ago, the BIRD-team started asking a basic question: What would it actually take to make blood-based Infrared Molecular Fingerprinting (IMF) reliable enough for robust clinical studies?
The honest answer turned out to be that it takes a village. Molecular biologists, physicists, biotechnologists, data analysts, and study coordinators all had a hand in figuring out how each step along the way - from blood draw to storage to the moment a sample finally reaches the spectrometer – can leave its own mark on the resulting fingerprint measurement.
The new paper from the BIRD-team, published in Analytical Chemistry puts that question to the test. Across more than 600 infrared spectroscopic measurements, we benchmarked the variables that matter most in practice: Whether blood draw at the clinic, freezing, thawing, or tube filling actually shows up in an infrared fingerprint, and whether it matters how long a sample waits before it is finally being measured. Each effect was then weighed against something more fundamental – the natural biological variability between people.
The findings provide a practical guidance for harmonizing IMF workflows across clinical studies, laboratories, and biobanks, foundation for other studies, biobanks and metrics, and a good reminder of how much groundwork is behind a single IMF measurement.
The BIRD-team is also proud that these findings were translated into an image by a graphic designer who has worked closely with us for years now, and that the result was selected for the cover of this issue of Analytical Chemistry.
Cover: Sama Aljarhi
Original publication:
preanalytical workflow establishment for reproducible clinical blood-based infrared molecular fingerprinting
K. Dietmann, G. Guo, J. Aschauer, T. Eissa, F. Fleischmann, M. Žigman
Analytical Chemistry 98, 18722 (2026)
