Why we created a phone-sized device to take blood diagnostics out of the lab into the real world

By Parth Shinde, Researcher, Birla Institute of Technology and Science

When your doctor thinks you might have an infection or an allergy, a simple blood test should give answers within hours. But for much of the world, that test can take days – or never happen at all. The problem is not usually the test itself, but an overlooked step between taking your blood and performing the diagnosis.

In most hospitals in high-income countries, separating plasma from blood is so routine that most people never think about it. A nurse takes your blood, sends it to the lab, and a machine called…

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