Headline, November20, 2013

''' WHAT ARE YOU GOING -TO- 

INVENT FOR !WOW! -NOW ? '''

Time and History in reverse:

At the end of World War II, Wallace Coulter was living in Chicago with his brother Joe, an engineer with Motorola. The two spent their free hours in a basement workshop tinkering with radios and electronics.

In 1947,  using a sewing needle, rubber bands and cellophane, Wallace discovered what became known as  ''the Coulter Principle''.

Here is how it works:  You submerge a test tube with a pinhole at one end and a bath of conductive solution, such as salt water. Then you hang a negatively charged electrode inside the tube and a positively charged electrode in the bath, to create a weak current.

Next, dissolve whatever particle you need counted into the bath. Finally, apply a vacuum pump to the test tube and suck a solution through the pinhole. As each particle passes through, it blocks the electrical current between the electrodes, causing voltage pulses.

The size and frequency of the pulses tells you how many many particles you've got and how big they are.

It's still the standard method to count tiny particles in fluids like paint, chocolate, ceramics or Blood.

This discovery completely changed the practice of ''Hematology''. In the old days a technician would have to smear a slide with blood,  stain it    -so the nuclei in the water cells would show up- , put it under a microscope and tally at least 100 cells with a hand clicker to estimate the red and white blood cell count.

A good technician could finish one count in 30 minutes. With the first Coulter counter, the Model A introduced in 1953, an automatic, accurate count, could be had in 10 minutes.

The brothers set up shop in 1961 in Hialeah, Fla. Joe saw to management while Wallace tinkered. Even after the patents expired, Coulter kept its edge over would be rivals by adding improvements to new models. 

It had the first machine to count multiple patients samples at once, and the first to computerize its machines to spit out easier-to-read graphs.

When the competition adds a new feature, Coulter copies it and then some. So, when  ''Toa''  came out with the first automated counter for reticulocytes, or immature red blood cells. By running cells past a laser Toa's machine could differentiate cells by density.

Which tells the computer which are red cells, which are white and what type of white cells they are. Coulter went further and made the feature standard in its new model.

Like camera and laser printers, blood cell counters are just the beginning of an annuity. The recurring profits are in the supplies. After discounting, selling expenses, installation and free customer training.

Coulter then began to pursue technology closer to its roots: flow cytometry, which characterizes an entire population of cells. It works by squirting thousands of a cell in a single file past a laser beam, whose reflected and transmitted light hits an array of sensors. A computer translates the data into a graphical display that alerts a doctor to malignancies or viral activity.

Some years ago Coulter began combining its cytometers, monoclonals and a neat substance called metal microspheres to quickly look for ''rare event''  cancer cells. It's a way to see the trees without the forest. Rare event cells so rare that they're hard to pick out even if you tag them fluorescent antibody.

So Coulter takes out the normal cells first by mixing the sample nickel microspheres coated with normal-finding monoclonals and attaching a magnet to the bottom. The nickel-jacket cells sink, leaving the bad cells ready for the flow cytometer.

What's this company worth today? I reckon anything up to a few billion dollars.

So remember : Needles  +  cellophane  =   Huge Fortune 

With respectful dedication to this very high class human and a devoted doctor, from  all those blessed to observe and experience her worship:   Dr Anne Pitaffi / Karachi, Pakistan.

See ya on the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless :

'''!!! The Happiness Gene !!!''' 

With respectful dedication to the loving memory of Nobel laureate, Mother Teresa. None have witnessed such splendour in suffering.

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless