A member of Barack Obama's Science and Technology Advisory Council explains the real possibility of a medical diagnostic system in every home with new "lab-on-a-chip" technology. It offers the ability to automatically treat a blood sample with chemicals on a microchip, quickly detecting markers for diseases and other anomalies!
This is not a futuristic technology; four tests already have received FDA clearances, so "They're here... It's in hospitals around the country. Really, what we are waiting for is just an increasing menu [of tests]...
"It will scale rapidly."
The quick "bio-barcode" test offers greater sensitivity than current tests with simpler instruments and at lower costs. "You no longer have to rely on these remote labs with this big bulky instrumentation... People 100 years from now will say, ''These guys were in the Stone Age.'"