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Spinoff story
Blood Analyzer
A real-world story of NASA technology finding a life beyond the mission.
About this technology
Overview
In the 1970's, NASA provided funding for development of an automatic blood analyzer for Skylab at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). ORNL devised dynamic loading which employed a spinning rotor to load, transfer, and analyze blood samples by centrifugal processing. A refined, commercial version of the system was produced by ABAXIS and is marketed as portable ABAXIS MiniLab MCA. Used in a doctor's office, the equipment can perform 80 to 100 chemical blood tests on a single drop of blood and report results in five minutes. Further development is anticipated.