COMBINATION BLOOD LANCET AND ANALYZER

1 . A method of collecting and analyzing blood, said method comprising:

cutting the skin of a subject with a lancet;

collecting a blood sample of the subject with the lancet;

passing light through the blood sample on the lancet; and

collecting the light passed through the blood sample with an optical spectrometer for analysis of the blood sample.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises allowing the liquid blood sample to dry on the lancet to form a dried blood sample.

3 . The method of claim 2 , further comprising subjecting the dried blood sample to optical spectroscopy.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein collecting the blood sample of the subject with the lancet comprises collecting a volume of less than 10 μL of blood.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein collecting the blood sample of the subject with the lancet comprises collecting a volume of less than 5 μL of blood.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein collecting the blood sample of the subject with the lancet comprises collecting a volume of less than 1 μL of blood.

7 . The method of claim 2 , further comprising subjecting the dried blood sample to infrared spectroscopy.

8 . The method of claim 2 , further comprising subjecting the dried blood sample to mid-infrared spectroscopy.

9 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising conducting optical spectroscopy upon a plurality of dried blood samples obtained from a plurality of subjects to obtain a plurality of dried blood spectra.

10 . The method of claim 9 , further comprising constructing a model from the plurality of dried blood spectra.

11 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the model is constructed using one or more multivariate least squares methods.

12 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the model is constructed using an augmented classical least squares method.

13 . The method of claim 10 , further comprising utilizing the model to allow predictive analysis of blood chemistry of an unknown blood sample.