2 ms·
Any citations on that? In all the hullabaloo about Theranos I haven't heard that there were serious theoretical difficulties with what they were trying to do.
by maxander 8y ago
Any citations on that? In all the hullabaloo about Theranos I haven't heard that there were serious theoretical difficulties with what they were trying to do.
It would make me feel somewhat better about the whole mess to know this was the case. A successful Theranos would have been the best thing to come out of SV since the Apple II. It was sad to see it fail because of executives' delusions.
- 21 8y agoI am no expert, but it's my understanding that blood in the capillaries (fingertip) is not exactly the same as blood in the veins. > In addition, the small volumes involved and the variability in sample quality based on puncture site and technique make capillary sampling particularly susceptible to errors during the pre-preanalytical phase, which are beyond the control of clinical laboratory personnel https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4622200/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4622200/
- oldgradstudent 8y agoIt's not the same as the veins, and varies a lot between fingers and location. It is well known to any diabetic, or to anyone who played for a few minutes with a blood glucose monitor.
- joezydeco 8y agoThe major medical diagnostic companies had been working on microfluidic assays for a couple of decades before Holmes came along. It's a very difficult subject especially when it comes to immunoassays. This wasn't a blue sky field by any means. There were numerous research papers on the topic, and some time spent with experts in the field would have also pointed her in the direction of the current research. Almost too late she hired an expert from Abbott Diagnostics (who headed up a number of successful system projects for them), and he walked away after 6 months.