The market potential for simple and reliable and low cost analyte capture and analysis for the diagnosis and prognosis of disease and overall physiological health are enormous. The potential exists for a markedly increasing advanced medical diagnostic testing in the developing world and rural regions worldwide. The resulting cost savings to healthcare can run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, and offer a venue by which home health care can become more prevalent.
Some of the many NASA applications include the potential to monitor crew health on long duration space missions with an on-board analyzer, or to predict emerging crew health concerns through known biomarker identification. In addition, health histories of previous astronauts can be catalogued using actual dried biological samples, which can be referenced, and analyzed at a later date should a health issue later transpire.
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