
Is there a chance Theranos may have been on to something? - NN88
What are the odds that the regulations in place only favored the big players who helped to draft the very rules and laws in place in which they thrive?<p>Is microfluidics, physics limitations withstanding, ripe for innovation? Is it even possible to do? Is it something thats only limited to the big players?<p>that being said...she and her company sound fraudulent as hell.
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PaulHoule
You can't do qualitative work with a combination of blood, sweat and
intercellular juice that you squeeze out of a finger prick.

You might be able to test for the presence or absence of a gene, but to
determine cholesterol levels, electrolytes, etc it isn't feasible because you
don't know what you are getting.

Back in the 1980s they developed fast cholesterol tests, for instance, that
work from a fingerprick. They used to use these for mass screenings, but the
accuracy is awful compared to the real test. I bought a pack of them and found
that I don't bleed enough of the right kind of blood for them to work.

Real cholesterol tests, on the other hand, are a bit expensive for real
because you do have to get a good sample and centrifuge it since you are not
just trying to determine one quantitative number but differentiate between HDL
and LDL types that settle out at different places in the tube.

