The science behind Theranos doesn’t add up By The Verge

biotech company theranos promised a blood testing Revolution with just a single drop of blood there machine could run hundreds of medical tests except the technology didn’t exist at least not in the way that its founder Elizabeth Holmes and vision did but that dream isn’t over yet

their nose made some pretty lofty promises that would have offended traditional blood testing as we knew it with its minilab dubbed the Addison photo lab and get your blood drawn for testing would make it so much easier I’m really revolutionize the blood testing industry like that’s a appealing promise that I’m covering the darkness trial from the courthouse in San Jose and explain to us why the blood testing industry even needed a company like their nose to begin with will draw vials of blood out of your arm and I get sent out to a lover you know some larger office has made have machines and house so there is claimed to be able to create a system that would kind of circumvent a lot of those challenges so they said that they could have a tabletop doctor’s office sized machine that could run under the blood tests on a single drop of blood

but even from the beginning pathologist question the accuracy I’m surprised about is you know what you’ll look at the people in the room and there’s been a lot of interest in your company I would argue that a lot of that comes from the fact that there were these claims were made that were very broad early on 70 cast the whole you know panoply of of lab test from a couple drops of blood and the evidence that you presented fell far short of that there are things that you can do with a single drop of blood you can test your blood sugar level for example if there are other things were single drop is just not realistic there might not be high enough concentration of what you’re trying to measure in a tiny drop greatly from one job to another one of change via the finger but even individual drop were identical certain tests need to separate out cells with a centrifuge or a specific chemicals to the samples that would make repeat testing impossible

their noses Ambitions are commendable but the idea was nothing new there are also working on a couple of main things happening you have the single drop of blood issue you have the lots of tests on one sample issue and you have the let’s drink this all down to a small machine knows all kind of individually are things that people are working on those are really hard and there are a lot of pain really significant challenges that a lot of smart people are working on Experts do not really think that that sort of pie-in-the-sky vision it’s only what’s really going to be feasible despite kind of the potential for a lot of the stuff to really be improved in an intubated on in reality I’m trying to advance this technology in Labs a ton of bus run at their nose because it was telling investors it could all be done right now according to testimony from The Trial poems of telling investors that the machines were already

used on military helicopters in combat zones these claims would not only come back to haunt Elizabeth Holmes in her fraud trial but they also had a chilling effect on other research being conducted in the field of blood test books were working on ecology and trying to shrink down at a store do more with less had trouble getting funding or interest because investors as well as his already done this so why should we invest with you and then when it came out that their nose couldn’t actually do what they said they were going to do you have to have the opposite problem where people would say oh but isn’t that all just a scam and so that made it harder for people to attract funding for their more realistic projects

as we approach the end of the trial of Elizabeth Holmes it’s become clear that his trial hasn’t covered many cracks in the way that startups operate particularly Healthcare startups has really made people kind of question whether the Silicon Valley startup move fast break things ethos is the approach we should be taken to Medical Technology we’re both health and lives are short of really on the line here and the accuracy and success of this technology is has really important implications for People’s Health everyone will remain highly skeptical of any new advancements in the blood testing industry for years to come and you’re going to see if Innovation but we’re likely not going to see if someone popped out of out of the ground with a device that’s going to change everything in the science is hard and we want to be careful

with how we move forward and make sure that the progress we’re making is actually real progress