Integrated Diagnostics
Why: By reducing the cost of diagnostic tests, it has allowed the monitoring of more disease markers.
Key innovation: Its synthetic antibodies replace more expensive antibodies widely used in diagnostics.
Story Archive
Healthpoint Services
Why: It is using telemedicine techniques to deliver health care to rural India.
Key innovation: Its network of eight centers brings advanced telemedicine systems to patients.
Wildcat Discovery
Why: Has used high-speed methods to find materials that improve the performance of batteries.
Key innovation: Identified a pair of materials that could increase energy density by 25 percent in batteries for cars and portable electronics.
Siluria
Why: Its catalytic process is able to convert cheap and abundant natural gas into ethylene, a commodity chemical used to make plastic.
Key innovation: Developed a family of catalysts that selectively cause methane to react to form ethylene.
OnLive
Why: Allows users to access applications too powerful for their hardware to support.
Key innovation: Its video streaming technology minimizes lag so that applications running on a server appear to be running locally.
Samsung
Why: Samsung is an increasingly major player in consumer electronics, from iPhone components to new phones, tablets, and OLED TVs; it was the world’s top seller of smart phones in 2011.
Key innovation: Tightly integrated design and manufacturing processes result in clever, efficiently produced designs.
Palantir Technologies
Why: Its software can extract common threads from mountains of data, potentially yielding leads for intelligence agencies and police forces.
Key innovation: The software, which can begin analyzing a new data set without extensive preparation, can handle many different types of input, including data from military operations and financial transactions.
Sakti3
Why: Its high-energy batteries, which will first appear in consumer devices, could make electric cars cheaper and improve their range.
Key innovation: Making batteries without the flammable liquid found in conventional electric-car batteries means they can store more energy.
LanzaTech
Why: Makes fuel and chemicals from the carbon monoxide produced by processes such as steelmaking.
Key innovation: Genetically engineered organisms turn the gas into ethanol and other useful chemicals.
Foundation Medicine
Why: Its new diagnostics exploit a growing understanding of the molecular basis of cancer.
Key innovation: It has developed a comprehensive cancer diagnostic test and is partnering with pharmaceutical companies to use the test in drug development.
