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| EIGHT |

The miniLab

ith Walgreens and Safeway on board as retail partners,
Elizabeth suddenly faced a problem of her own making:
she had told both companies her technology could
perform hundreds of tests on small blood samples. The truth was that
the Edison system could only do immunoassays, a type of test that
uses antibodies to measure substances in the blood. Immunoassays
included some commonly ordered lab tests such as tests to measure
vitamin D or to detect prostate cancer. But many other routine blood
tests, ranging from cholesterol to blood sugar, required completely
different laboratory techniques.

Elizabeth needed a new device, one that could perform more than
just one class of test. In November 2010, she hired a young engineer
named Kent Frankovich and put him in charge of designing it. Kent
had just obtained a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from
Stanford. Before that, he’d spent two years working for NASA’s Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena where he’d helped build Curiosity,
the Mars rover. Kent in turn recruited Greg Baney, a friend he’d met at
NASA who’d gone on to work for SpaceX, Elon Musk’s Los Angeles–
based rocket company. At six feet five and 260 pounds, Greg was built
like an NFL lineman, but his physique belied a sharp intellect and a
keen sense of observation.

For a period of several months, Kent and Greg became Elizabeth’s
favorite employees. She sat in on their brainstorming sessions and
made suggestions about what robotics systems they should consider
using. She gave them company credit cards and let them charge