I spent a few years with a major player in the diagnostics business. I worked directly on their automated ELISA machines.<p>When I was there in the 1990s, they already had spent a decade or so of R&amp;D on microfluidic technology.  They saw it as a hockey stick, but the technical hurdles were (and continued to be) very large.<p>The idea that one very talented scientist could find a novel solution that this company, with dozens of dedicated biochemists, could not find is plausible. But I believe the reality is somewhat different.