In the beginning, Theranos was called Real-Time Cures. Corny? Sure. But Elizabeth Holmes was barely 19 when she came up with it, a Stanford dropout aspiring to upend personalized medicine. Besides changing its name, Theranos has come a long way: It's raised hundreds of millions of dollars, signed deals with huge consumer health companies, received federal approval, and been the subject of glowing profiles in some of the world's most prestigious publications.

Theranos has also been the subject of a damning Wall Street Journal investigation that attacked the company's credibility, its business plan, and its technology. Theranos is a complicated, secretive company that is caught up in a scandal because it may have broken esoteric regulatory rules, and violated fundamental guidelines for how science is done. Its saga is fascinating. Also confusing. So it's best to just start at the beginning.

Early days

Legend has it, Elizabeth Holmes founded Theranos because she is afraid of needles. Which is an oversimplified version of what really happened. Holmes spent some of her freshman year at Stanford working in chemical engineering professor Channing Robertson's lab alongside PhDs. Over the summer, she interned in a lab in Singapore that was looking for ways to detect SARS in minute traces of blood and mucus. She came back charged, and spent days working on a patent for a patch-worn drug delivery system. She presented her patent to Robertson and told him she was dropping out of school to start a company. She asked him to join the board, and he agreed.