Curious how would it spin out the bigger standard vacutainers though? Great idea though!

The centrifuge is mainly used for separating the serum from the plasma and for most pathology tests you only need a couple of teardrop sized amounts of serum for testing. Obviously this device is using a tiny container to hold the blood sample. Who would have thought when we span these toys around as children often home made or free with comics that they would have a use in he field lab.

#2 I'm familiar with separating blood into plasma and solid particles, but didn't know you only needed such a small amount of blood for most tests.

#3 It rather depends on the tests being done. If you think about the paediatric containers where you have a 0.5ml container often less than half full and only a quarter of that is serum (if you are lucky) and often some of that is jelly (that's from the jelly babies) you are often dealing with tiny amounts. For most tests the samples are diluted but if the Dr has requested a barrage of tests like say CRP LFT TFT AIS etc sometimes something doesn't get done and more sample is requested. There are tests that require much larger amounts think Cryoglobulins for example when three full vacutainers maybe 15ml might be required (don't know what they do in the states). Interestingly the rpm of the centrifuge can sometimes be critical and the temperature of the blood received in the lab. The biggest mistake of course is blood being put into the wrong container ie in EDTA when serum is required not plasma. So if you get a request from your doctor to repeat your test because it was 'Inconclusive' it might well have been or it might have been put in the wrong bottle, lost or mislabelled. Depends how good your FLEABO is live long and prosper

We used to make toys like that out of a button and string when we were kids. The idea is not new but the innovation part is to use that old toy for something practical. So they didn't invented anything new, they just applied a toy principle to a medical need - which by itself is laudable.

(Edit) - well, I commented before I watched the whole video. That serves me right.

#4 Somehow it seems as if you have medical background but then again it also seems as if you don't...there is no AIS test...and you would never get a call from a doctor about an inconclusive lab result, you get that call from the lab itself...nothing ever gets put in "bottles"....my conclusion, due to small mistakes and inconsistencies: You are not in the medical field

#6 Sometimes it seems you are a nurse and have a medical background and sometimes I worry that your training has a few gaps lol. There is certainly an AIS test it stand for Auto Immune Screen and is extremely common. The test is usually made up of several parts ana (anti nuclear antibodies) parietal cell, Mitocondrial abs and sma smooth muscle abs. Maybe in the states they are requested separately so that the patient can be charged 4x for one test. The patients sample after processing is viewed under a microscope and the binding of the different parts ana,sma,mito,etc can all be viewed at the same time on the one slide. The assays for the whole screen cost around £13 $16 so no doubt the patient will be charge $1200 for the test. As a matter of interest there used to be a test in the UK called GPL and I bet you will never guess what that stands for.

In the UK as a patient you would never get a call from a lab neither would you be able to call the lab yourself for results, some people try it but they better sound like a Dr and not fall down over any additional medical questions from the lab if their is any suspicion. If there was an issue with a blood sample maybe it arrived clotted for instance or was so out of range that it needed repeating, the Dr requesting the test would get a report to that effect and then he/she would request a repeat sample the terminology for that repeat could quite easily say inconclusive. So I'm afraid I beg to differ.

OH i LOVE it when you guys ( Thundersnow & JJ ) get technical ;-)

#8 Haha...yeah, we're gonna get very technical now..

#7 Haha...yes, you are right my education has many gaps, lab technology being one, I only draw it, once it's in the tube system, I don't worry about it...but I'm always very open to learning new things and fill the gaps ....by the way, that was a misunderstanding, the call to the doctor from the lab, I meant when you work in a hospital, you, the nurse gets the call from the lab to redraw, because of either hemolization, coagulation, too little or too much specimen, barcode damaged, or forgotten to ice it....but yeah, outpatient is a different situation. Now, back to the labs, it's obvious you work in a lab, either as a clinical lab technologist or maybe you're the lab director, unless you just studied all this in one day to be able to make this conversation, but that's unlikely, no...you do work in a lab, one that maybe does mainly autoimmune testing, also because you seem very familiar with the charges, something we don't know at all, but I know the lab does. I'm not too familiar with autoimmune testing, however every now and then a physician might order an array of the tests you mentioned, esp ANA, RF, CRP, Coombs Test, and many more, they are sent out to a specialty lab (except the CRP) and take a week or so to come back, I never see the results...and yes, they are all ordered separately, and probably charged separately. My job is it to draw them, into the correctly colored vacationer and label them, and put date, time and my initials on it. I like this site, it has all the tests listed, I didn't know there were that many. So tell me more about your work in the lab

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2832720/

#9 That is not how I spend my days, I may have mentioned before or maybe not, I drive fast cars, fondle women, I don't work weekends and I am my own boss. Oh and I'm not Donald Fart.

#10 Yes, yes, you have mentioned before, it's possible though the clinical lab tech job is a side job, while you have "down" time from the other job ....ohhh, please don't mention that cr...p

#11 Why don't you want me to mention the cr...p? There are no dots in a C Reactive Protein.

Come on now Thunders what's your real name?

#12 My real name is not even close to my username, but since I'm on snotr so much, I almost feel thundersnow has become my real name. I'll tell you, if you tell me your real name, occupation, name and appearance .... oh CRP anytime over the cr...p

#13 I remain the JJ of mystery

lube comments...

My goodness I had completely forgotten about this item and the conversations I had with Thunders about it, miss those days.