Neonatal sepsis is a life-threatening blood infection with a global burden affecting an estimated 1.3-3.0 million infants annually. Premature infants are at the highest risk of developing sepsis. Despite considerable improvements in health outcomes, the clinical and translational research needed to understand neonatal sepsis better is limited by the lack of access to high-quality, prospective biospecimen collection. This presentation will highlight challenges in collecting blood samples from very preterm infants with sepsis and suggest opportunities to improve collection feasibility for multicentre studies.