Building A Hand-Held Lab-On-A-Chip To Simplify Blood Tests

A cell phone-sized blood-count machine requiring less blood than a mosquito bite will make blood tests easier for many patients, from neonatal units to astronauts in space. Funded by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI), researchers at the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, Los Angeles, and IRIS International, Inc., are working to create a hand-held device that provides accurate appraisals of blood chemistry using minute blood samples. The process takes about two minutes.