5 ms·

I'm curious where you're getting any of that information from the linked page - I very well may be missing something, but you are making a ton of assumptions [0

by nmjohn 12y ago

I'm curious where you're getting any of that information from the linked page - I very well may be missing something, but you are making a ton of assumptions [0] whereas I was giving them the benefit of the doubt until more information is known. Additionally, there are uses extending beyond cancer that are much more "binary" in nature which is where I see the value. [0]: * They have a sample prep that likely involves several chemicals that no layperson should ever work with * what they already do, a blood draw and the hospital lab will do the rest.

aroch 12y ago
It's step 1 of their "3 easy steps"[0].... If you read their Wired profile[1], it's clear there's sample prep involved. I do RNA work quite frequently, (high quality) RNA preparation is finicky and involves reagents you can't buy as a normal person and equipment that may not be "specialized" but isn't in your standard Gen practitioners office and definitely in effectively 0 homes. High throughput RNA extraction -- which is what their Mastermix is -- yields OK-ish quality RNA but works fairly well if you have well optimized RT-primers. There are several caveats to quick extractions though, the two big ones for this product are it doesn't work well for human tissue or blood samples and they're either not doing very much testing (literally only 96 specific tests) or they're doing broad range testing and not using optimized primers because there's not a lot of RNA in any given sample. My guess is a combination of the two, there's a reason why the real microarrays we run for research are both expensive and time consuming. Doctors already "test" for things, and by that we mean the doctors have nurses do a blood draw and that blood draw is sent the the hospital lab. And the hospital lab does the testing. Even with this device, it's still the hospital lab that's going to do the testing. Your lab results don't necessarily take a while to come back because they're hard or cumbersome or take a ton of time to do, they take a while because the lab is running more than just your samples and your doctor has more than one patient (and also might like to sleep at some point). Most labs (that don't need something like culturing) can easily come back in less than 24hours and assuming you were the only one could come back in just a few hours. I see no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt, they've shown nothing to merit it. Mass producing what appears to be a hotplate with a non-tunable $5 laser inside a sleek, shiny baby blue case and making a companion iPhone app is gimicky. There aren't that many diseases that present as binary and those that do have existing, proven tests. [0]: "1. Extract the total RNA from the patient's blood sample and pipette it in a standard 96 well plate " [1] http://www.wired.com/2014/10/miroculus/ http://www.wired.com/2014/10/miroculus/ "You can prepare the blood sample, for instance, using a standard off-the-shelf RNA extraction kit, as well as a Miroculus 'master mix'"

by nmjohn 12y ago

aroch 12y ago

It's step 1 of their "3 easy steps"[0].... If you read their Wired profile[1], it's clear there's sample prep involved. I do RNA work quite frequently, (high quality) RNA preparation is finicky and involves reagents you can't buy as a normal person and equipment that may not be "specialized" but isn't in your standard Gen practitioners office and definitely in effectively 0 homes. High throughput RNA extraction -- which is what their Mastermix is -- yields OK-ish quality RNA but works fairly well if you have well optimized RT-primers. There are several caveats to quick extractions though, the two big ones for this product are it doesn't work well for human tissue or blood samples and they're either not doing very much testing (literally only 96 specific tests) or they're doing broad range testing and not using optimized primers because there's not a lot of RNA in any given sample. My guess is a combination of the two, there's a reason why the real microarrays we run for research are both expensive and time consuming. Doctors already "test" for things, and by that we mean the doctors have nurses do a blood draw and that blood draw is sent the the hospital lab. And the hospital lab does the testing. Even with this device, it's still the hospital lab that's going to do the testing. Your lab results don't necessarily take a while to come back because they're hard or cumbersome or take a ton of time to do, they take a while because the lab is running more than just your samples and your doctor has more than one patient (and also might like to sleep at some point). Most labs (that don't need something like culturing) can easily come back in less than 24hours and assuming you were the only one could come back in just a few hours. I see no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt, they've shown nothing to merit it. Mass producing what appears to be a hotplate with a non-tunable $5 laser inside a sleek, shiny baby blue case and making a companion iPhone app is gimicky. There aren't that many diseases that present as binary and those that do have existing, proven tests. [0]: "1. Extract the total RNA from the patient's blood sample and pipette it in a standard 96 well plate " [1] http://www.wired.com/2014/10/miroculus/ http://www.wired.com/2014/10/miroculus/ "You can prepare the blood sample, for instance, using a standard off-the-shelf RNA extraction kit, as well as a Miroculus 'master mix'"