Among them: I-Stat, owned by Abbott Laboratories (nyse: ABT - news - people ), which makes a handheld device for basic chemistry that uses so-called ion-selective membranes, and Cholestech (nasdaq: CTEC - news - people ), which has a lipids testing machine and relies on a glucometerlike optical reflection technology.

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The basic mechanisms at work have been known for decades but the so-called "micro-physics" are poorly understood.

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