Manu Prakash’s lab releases third design following his frugal design philosophy
Orange County, CA - February 7th 2017 - The centrifuge was first invented in 1875 after Alexander Prandtl made improvements to his brother Antonin’s design for a dairy centrifuge that separated cream from milk. Using the sedimentation principle, centrifuges apply a strong force perpendicular to the axis of the rotating object. This causes denser particles in the sample to move outward while less dense particles move into the center, separating the different components.
Evolving over the years, the centrifuge is now a part of most basic laboratory setups, but access to this is difficult to come by in developing countries. Connection to stable electrical supply isn’t guaranteed, and the price and size of the machine doesn’t allow for easy acquirement. To help combat access to these machines, a research team from Stanford University created their own device inspired from the Whirligig toy.
Manu Prakash, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford, said in an interview that, “There are more than a billion people around the world who have no infrastructure, no roads, no electricity. I realized that if we wanted to solve a critical problem like malaria diagnosis, we needed to design a human-powered centrifuge that costs less than a cup of coffee.”
Hand powered, paper based, and costing less than a pack of bubblegum, the “paperfuge” can spin with speeds up to 125,000 revolutions per minute. A commercial centrifuge can cost anywhere from $1000 to $5000 and can separate plasma from blood in about two minutes. The paperfuge can accomplish what a commercial centrifuge can do in a minute and a half and costs just 20 cents.
In the pilot study of the device, still comparable to a commercial centrifuge, scientists were able to separate malaria parasites from blood in 15 minutes. They also found that in coating the otherwise transparent centrifuge sac with an acridine orange dye, the malaria was visible under a microscope.
Prakash’s lab is driven by their value of frugal design philosophy, or ability to recreate medical devices at a fraction of the cost. This is the third innovation Prakash has made. The other two are a less than $1 microscope, called the foldscope, and a $5 programmable chemistry set that mimics a hand crank music box.
Prakash has said his inventions are, “about democratizing scientific tools to get them out to people around the world.” He hopes one day that anyone, anywhere, will be able to carry a lab in their backpack.
To read the results of their study and more on the paperfuge click here.
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Manu Prakash’s lab releases third design following his frugal design philosophy Orange County, CA – February 7th 2017 – The centrifuge was first invented in 1875 after Alexander Prandtl made improvements to his brother Antonin’s design for a dairy centrifuge that separated cream from milk. Using the sedimentation principle, centrifuges apply a strong force perpendicular to […]