(2007-09-05) Tru Diagnosis

Thomas Goetz (Wired Mag) on AkonniBiosystems' TruDiagnosis system. Almost 20 years after the CDC's plan, our inability to diagnose and track infectious disease quickly and accurately (Disease Tracking) remains a serious problem... TruDiagnosis is made of cheap injection-molded plastic. It's small enough to carry into the field and use outside a lab. And it produces results in an hour or less. "Anyone should be able to use it without much training," Charles Daitch says. "This is what we're focused on." He wants to make it so cheap that the cost of the TruDiagnosis reader is negligible, something nonprofits or foundations can buy in bulk and give away. The target price is under $5,000. Individual tests will be priced from $50 in the US to less than $10 globally.