All in the blood

IMAGINE being able to assess the state of one's health with just one microlitre of blood. That's now a reality with Bloodhound technology, which performs a complete blood cell count with, yes, just that volume - one-millionth of a litre, or a few drops. With a complete blood cell count, a doctor can evaluate a patient's overall health and detect a wide range of disorders including anaemia and leukaemia. While conventional blood tests require drawing about 110 microlitres of blood (one vial), Bloodhound uses only 30 microlitres - of which one microlitre is used for the test.

The man behind the invention, medical scientist David Zahniser, tells The Business Times that the technology was created in the most unlikely of places - his home basement - and how the invention was in fact a family affair. A scientist-entrepreneur, Dr Zahniser, 66, has been labelled "a Steve Jobs in the world of diagnostics". In 2004, two doctors from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston had approached him for help with analysing blood cells on a computer image.

Dr Zahniser was then an independent consultant to Cytyc Corporation, a company he co-founded and which had developed an automated method for preparing microscope slides of cervical cell specimens.The two doctors had known about his work in cell digital imaging and analysis of Pap smear slides.