True story: What do you get the 15 year old kid that won the Intel International Science fair first prize of us$75 000 ?
A really fierce patent lawyer.
A US kid, Jack Andraka, discovered that filter paper dipped in carbon nanotubes, covered with specific anti bodies (to isolate the protein that you are looking for) results in noticeable changes in the electrical conductivity of the nanotubes when the distances between them changes (increases as the binding occurs)
This is extremely useful insofar as it potentially reduces the costs of some us$800 tests for cancer and other cells, to us$3
Of course that is before the patent registration, royalties, technology distribution fee’s and other additional overheads will probably increase the costs to a few hundfred dollars again…
It is an extremely interesting society that we live in and humans are amazing animals.
