In medicine, small is beautiful
Community Conversations by Michael Abraham
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Elliot McAllister is pushing health care to a new level. The Blacksburg scientist is using a Star Trek like technology called microfluidics that shows promise to revolutionize medical diagnostics by making testing for a variety of illnesses cheap and fast, literally done by yourself at home. Imaging diagnosing cancer in your own body within 15 minutes for $20.
Microfluidics is the study of behavior of fluids through infinitesimally small micro- channels. Fluids like blood, saliva, and urine behave differently on a microfluidic scale than under normal conditions, and thus these new ways can be tracked and analyzed to show the condition of the human body. Elliot is using innovative 3-D printers of his own design and development to create this sub-sub-sub-miniature devices, literally from his garage/workshop at his home in the Merrimac community outside Blacksburg.
The son of a professor of microbiology, Elliot has a degree in Mechanical
Engineering from the University of New Hampshire and a Masters Degree in Materials Engineering from Virginia Tech. He began his career with a fledgling