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Famed Medical Test 'ELISA' Celebrates Its 35th
Eva Engvall is one of the scientists who invented the ELISA test in 1971. She is shown at her home near Buellton, Calif. Engvall is currently a professor at the Burnham Institute in La Jolla, Calif.
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Joe Palca, NPR
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Every so often, a new technology completely changes the medical practice. It's impossible to imagine an internist without a stethoscope, or an orthopedist without an X-ray machine.
In 1971, two Swedish scientists, Eva Engvall and Peter Perlman, who died in 2005, invented a test that revolutionized medicine.
Called the ELISA test, the method uses antibodies to seek out the presence of hormones or viruses. In the past, testing for these was cumbersome and time-consuming. But ELISA tests can be done in a matter of hours, sometimes minutes.
The test is widely used today, for detecting malaria in small villages in Africa to home pregnancy testing.
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