When you get blood drawn to diagnose your disease, you may want to thank Rosalyn Yalow, who recently died at age 89.
(image Wikipedia)
originally, it took a lot of blood to be able to find the tiny amounts of what you were trying to measure, but then Yallow and her collegue noted that by making antibodies with radioactivity they could mix these with the sample, and then just measure the radioactivity present.
it's called radio immuno assays.
We now use variations of this type of testing using other antibodies with links to plastic or chemicals that generate color etc that can be measured, but the idea of using markers got her a Nobel Prize.
The irony is that Yallow worked for the VA because no one else would hire her after she got her PhD.
I'm old enough to remember the "good old days" when those of us good at science were told to become teachers or nurses, not doctors or PhD's...
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