4 ms·
Pardon my ignorance but what are the issues as to why something like what Theranos was proposing was so difficult? Is it that the underlying tech is too hard o
by adiusmus 8y ago
Pardon my ignorance but what are the issues as to why something like what Theranos was proposing was so difficult?
Is it that the underlying tech is too hard or is there some basic engineering that doesn’t exist yet?
(Ignoring the fact they didn’t have a real solution / the whole thing was a scam etc)
- bootlooped 8y agoMy impression was that at least one issue is the sample size of blood needs to be large enough to be representative of the whole system. If you pick 5 skittles out of a bag, no amount of technology can make it so you can reliably determine the frequency of each color over the whole bag. There are other issues another comment describes well.
- adiusmus 8y agoGood analogy. I’m not a medical person so I’m not sure about the statistical sample volume required for typical tests. I do know that I’ve had comprehensive testing done and they took 5 tubes the length of my finger. That’s pretty far from the drop of blood that Theranos were after. The future has a way of returning to these things. We’ll see if there’s even a partial approach that could work soon enough. Or not.
- sjg007 8y agoThere's an issue of false readings given the small volumes used. That's not to say that some tests are possible.