IITian quits Hollywood to design lab in suitcase | Hacker News Reader

IITian quits Hollywood to design lab in suitcase

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

15 pointsnewsign6 comments

Here's an excerpt from National Technology Day 2013 press release[1]:

The First product which is Blood Chemistry Analyser & Compact Portable Mobile Lab developed by Sh. Amit Bhatnagar, an IITian with the assistance of TDB. This Analyser supports the analysis of 23 parameters which includes Haemoglobin count, Blood Glucose, Urea, Uric Acid, Creatinine, Total Protein, Bilirubin, Cholesterol, Triglycerides, SGPT, Calcium, Magnesium, and Phosphorous. Cost of testing all 23 parameters on this device is less than Rs. 120 per person. The analyser is capable of analyzing 4000 samples during a day. The Blood chemistry analyzer costs around Rs. 80,000/-.

From press-kit photo[2], I guess product is marketed under the name Accuster Mobile Lab[3].

[1]http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=95923

[2]http://pib.nic.in/newsite/photo.aspx?photoid=47147

[3]http://www.accuster.com/product_details.php?id=P14&cid=C...

This is really cool, and the effort is definitely admirable, but I'd have a few questions:

1. A suitcase can't conduct an examination and render a diagnosis; someone has to be able to operate it effectively. Are those people -- doctors, nurses, or someone with similar training -- available in the places that could benefit the most from this?

2. From what's been posted around here, India has a very serious basic sanitation problem. If that's true, two things:

2a. How will a predominantly filthy (bacterially speaking) environment effect the accuracy and utility of this, particularly over long term use of a single unit?

2b. Can we expect this to actually do any good in a significant number of cases? I'd expect that a diagnosis like "yes, your malady is x, which is an infection from the water you drink" is going to do very little good for many people's situation.

I have no idea how the cost of this compares to salaries or publicly-available funds for the places this is intended for, but that seems to me like another potential issue.

For 1: Rural places in India have Primary Health Centres (PHCs); they're basically clinics with basic health-care facilities[0]. I believe these PHCs would benefit from such portable blood analyzers, as setting up a full fledged diagnostic lab may not be economical. PHCs would have doctor, nurse and pharmacist; so operating these kits shouldn't be a problem. Also, from the linked article, it looks like Border Roads Organisation is already using these kits.

For 2a and 2b: I am not sure how effective it will be in long run, in filthy environment :)

[0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_Health_Centre,_India

Your man is gonna make some serious money.

1. Clearly he is politicly connected. You don't get govt funding in India without being connected to some member of parliament or another.

2. And he knows some serious science.

3. Is clearly an entrepreneur.

Well done him.

I think the bigger story is how he 'got into hollywood'

Respect

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