YourBio TAP® Micro Select.
The blood draw
even a child would barely feel.
Exclusive importer and distributor for the EU, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Middle East, expanding soon.
A whole-blood sample,
from the upper arm.
The YourBio TAP® Micro Select (the European name for the latest version of the TAP) is a single-use, push-button upper-arm blood collection device. One press, and a bladeless micro-point array with a gentle vacuum draws liquid capillary whole blood straight into a BD Microtainer tube. No fingertip squeeze, no milking, no lancet sting, no venepuncture. It is the device patient-centric, decentralised diagnostics is built around: collected at home or at the point of care, returned to an accredited laboratory.
- CE marked
- FDA 510(k) cleared
- Bladeless microneedle array
TAP® Micro Select wins expanded regulatory approval with the CE Mark, YourBio Health →
Usability is a
medical feature.
User error is the real barrier to remote blood collection: anxiety, inadequate volume, hemolysis. By collecting from the upper arm rather than a coaxed fingertip, TAP removes the friction that makes people fail on the first try, and a first-try failure is a lost sample and a lost patient.
Compared head to head. A 2025 study in Bioanalysis put four upper-arm capillary technologies, RedDrop One, Tasso+, Comfort Draw and the TAP Micro Select, against fingerstick and venous collection in 41 adults, measuring pain and preference, volume and collection time, and agreement with venepuncture. No single device stood out as superior, and analyte correlations with venous blood were similar across all four, so the authors conclude that a technology should be chosen for its intended population. That is the platform’s argument in one sentence: the device is chosen per programme, and the assay is validated per panel.
Powered by HALO™.
Deep enough to work.
Shallow enough not to hurt.
HALO is a bladeless microneedle array: thirty micro-points, each finer than a human eyelash, integrated into a single ring. Nothing cuts and nothing lances.
- Warm
- Apply
- Press
- Collect
- Detach
Hold the heat pad on the upper arm for four minutes. Warming dilates capillary blood vessels and raises capillary flow at the surface, which is what the draw volume depends on.
Connect the BD Microtainer, and stick the device to the upper arm; the adhesive keeps it in place.
One press of the plunger until “click” drives the microneedle array through the surface of the skin. Releasing the plunger pulls the micro-points back, and activates the vacuum.
About a minute and a half draws a liquid whole-blood sample into a BD Microtainer tube, the standardised tube the laboratory already runs.
Detach the device, wipe any remaining extra blood on the arm and apply the patch. Cap the tube and drop it in the tracked mailer. Chain of custody from the first second.
Five steps. Four minutes warming, a minute and a half collecting.
- Micro-points
- 30, one integrated array
- Length
- 1,000 µm, into the capillary bed, above the nerve plexus
- Thickness
- Finer than a human eyelash
At 1,000 µm long, the micro-points are built to reach the capillary bed and stop short of the pain receptors below it, which is why patients describe the collection as virtually painless next to a finger stick, a lancet or a venepuncture. Asked to compare the two directly, 63% preferred it to a needle and just 7% preferred the needle.
On painlessness, patients at the Columbia University Fertility Center · Columbia University Irving Medical Center → On preference, Besser et al. · Diabetes Care 2024;47(2):239 · 91 children and adults, Oxford University Hospitals →
Validated per panel,
not per device.
Capillary blood is the same matrix as venous blood at a smaller volume, and every panel is validated against paired venous samples before a result is reported. The published record shows why. TAP II capillary serum correlated with venous serum at R above 0.9 for eight analytes including ALT, AST, cholesterol, HDL and triglycerides, while carbon dioxide, potassium and albumin did not reach agreement (Journal of Applied Laboratory Medicine, 2023). Plasma lipidomes from self-collected upper-arm capillary blood were statistically indistinguishable from paired venous plasma (Journal of Lipid Research, 2025). And the IATDMCT guideline asks for method- and analyte-specific validation with paired samples before plasma-equivalent results are reported (Therapeutic Drug Monitoring, 2026). Validation runs per assay on the platform for exactly that reason.
Thirteen years of restraint.
Then a sticker.
University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust ran a small trial, twenty patients and several devices, looking for one that would work for people with learning disabilities, for whom a venepuncture can mean being held down. YourBio TAP is the one they kept.
Abi is fifteen, has Down’s syndrome, and needs regular thyroid monitoring. Her mother counts thirteen years of blood tests that ended in tears and restraint, for everyone in the room, not just for Abi. At a routine annual health check her nurse offered the new method instead. Abi calls it fun.
“It’s absolutely transformed how I see Abi’s future healthcare. She’s had it done twice now and she’s quite happy to go.”
Abi’s mother · University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation TrustAbigail's StoryBlood Sciences, University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust · 5:09
Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play: no third-party request, no cookie, before that. The film is Blood Sciences, University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust’s, not ours. Watch it on YouTube →
In children the device is applied under healthcare-professional supervision, at the practice or the point of care; at-home self-collection is for adults. Infants are sampled from the thigh, held in a parent’s arms.
The first clinic anywhere.
And it was fertility.
Monitoring one round of IVF asks for around six blood draws in a fortnight, in the same arm, at the most stressful time of a person’s life. The Columbia University Fertility Center in New York replaced those draws with a TAP collection and says it became the first place anywhere to use this kind of technology in clinical care, in any specialty, not only fertility.
What made it possible was not the device alone: it took laboratory chemistry able to read hormones from the amount of blood the device gives you, which is roughly a tenth of a standard draw. Device and assay, together. That pairing is the whole argument for putting this on a platform rather than buying it as a product.
“This method for drawing blood was truly painless. It took some stress out of what is already a stressful process.”
Mariel Boyd · patient · Columbia University Fertility CenterColumbia Fertility Center Takes the Pain Out of Blood DrawsColumbia University Irving Medical Center · 4:11
Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play: no third-party request, no cookie, before that. The film is Columbia University Irving Medical Center’s, not ours. Watch it on YouTube →
The full fertility case, with the published evidence → · Read it at Columbia →
Both films, and the figures and quotes drawn from them, belong to the institutions that made them, University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust and Columbia University Irving Medical Center. They report their own programmes; neither is a Humans Nexus study. TAP is the YourBio device curated on this platform.
Assembled into a kit.
YourBio is curated onto the platform and assembled into a regulated Humans Nexus collection kit: device, skin prep, BD Microtainer collection tube, tamper-evident return mailer and app-guided instructions, under its own UDI. The TAP Micro Select is built to collect straight into the BD Microtainer, so the sample reaches the lab in the standardised, colour-coded microtube it already trusts.
A liquid sample, handled.
Liquid capillary blood is a liquid matrix, so it is handled where the assay requires it: controlled-temperature transport, temperature-logged from collection to accessioning, through Humans Nexus logistics, tracked on the platform. Dried formats ship ambient; liquid is the managed exception, applied only where the panel needs it.
For everyone who runs blood tests.
Good to know.
Is YourBio TAP Micro Select virtually painless?
The collection is described as virtually painless, and patients in the published record agree: in the Oxford study in Diabetes Care, 63% of children and adults preferred it to a needle. It collects from the upper arm through bladeless micro-points, so there is no fingertip lance, no sting and no squeeze.
Is the YourBio TAP the same as the TAP Micro Select?
Yes. YourBio Health makes the TAP® family, and the TAP® Micro Select is the European name for the latest version of the TAP. It is the model on this page, also written Microselect, and the one Humans Nexus distributes. If you have seen it called simply the YourBio TAP, that is the same device. The TAP® II is the earlier model, and it is the one named in the older studies cited on this page.
What does it collect?
A liquid whole-blood sample, the same matrix as a venous draw, in microsample volume, suitable for a broad validated panel.
What tube does the blood go into?
A BD Microtainer: the TAP Micro Select is built to collect capillary blood straight into it, so the sample arrives in the standardised, colour-coded microtube the laboratory already runs and can process like any other.
Who can use it?
Adults self-collect at home with app-guided instructions, per the manufacturer, including the needle-averse and remote patients. In children, the device is used under healthcare-professional supervision, at the practice or the point of care.
What is its regulatory status?
The TAP Micro Select is CE marked and registered in EUDAMED, and FDA 510(k) cleared. YourBio Health is the legal manufacturer and makes the device in the United States. Humans Nexus exclusively imports and distributes it in the EU, Switzerland and the UK, holds the conformity documentation, and assembles the regulated kits around the device.
How does it compare with other upper-arm devices?
In the only independent head-to-head, Bioanalysis 2025, four upper-arm devices including the TAP Micro Select varied in user experience and collection performance with none clearly superior, and their agreement with venous results was similar. The choice comes down to the population and the programme, which is what the platform is for. Of the four, Tasso+ and the TAP Micro Select carry both CE marking and FDA 510(k) clearance; RedDrop One holds FDA clearance; Comfort Draw is Labcorp’s own device.
Which tests are validated on capillary blood?
Each panel is validated per assay against paired venous samples before anything is reported, as the IATDMCT guideline asks. Published work supports lipids, liver enzymes and metabolic markers on TAP capillary serum, plasma lipidomics on self-collected upper-arm blood, and fertility hormones at Columbia. Some analytes, such as potassium and carbon dioxide, did not reach agreement in that work, which is why the panel and not the device is what gets validated.
Does it need cold chain?
As a liquid matrix, it is handled with controlled-temperature transport where the assay requires it, temperature-logged end to end on the Humans Nexus platform.
Library YourBio TAP Micro Select
Peer-reviewed studies in which a YourBio TAP device, TAP II or TAP Micro Select, collected the sample: agreement with venous draws analyte by analyte, patient experience, and the honest limits where that agreement breaks down. Every paper opens its page in the OpenSampling Library, with a link to an open-access copy where one exists.
Venous-capillary blood agreement for routine chemistry analytes: effects of collection site and sample matrix
Read in the LibraryComparing capillary blood collection technologies: patient experience, device performance and clinical accuracy
Read in the LibraryPainless, needle-free capillary blood collection for fertility hormone monitoring
Read in the LibraryTransdermal blood sampling for C-peptide is a minimally invasive, reliable alternative to venous sampling in children and adults with type 1 diabetes
Read in the LibraryDetermination of Capillary Blood TSH and Free Thyroxine Levels Using Digital Immunoassay
Read in the LibraryFeasibility, reliability and satisfaction of (automated) capillary carcinoembryonic antigen measurements for future home-based blood sampling: the prospective CASA-I study
Read in the Library
One free account opens every finding in the OpenSampling Library. The same account signs you in to Pulse.
These citations describe the published evidence for the collection formats and devices, not claims about specific Humans Nexus assays, which are validated per analyte and per laboratory.
Put liquid capillary blood on your platform.
Talk to us about YourBio for your programme.