2016 MacArthur “Genius” Manu Prakash On Frugal Science And His Aim To Make Scientific Tools More Accessible Worldwide.

Manu Prakash, a Physical Biologist and Inventor who is an Assistant Professor, Department of Bioengineering at Stanford University is one of the 23 people chosen as 2016 MacArthur Fellows.

Source: https://www.macfound.org/fellows/965/
Source: https://www.macfound.org/fellows/965/

According to his bio on MacArthur Foundations’s website:

Prakash has channeled his ingenuity to invent several devices that empower frugal science: these are low-cost, widely accessible, and appropriate for use in low-resource and field settings. Foldscope, a lightweight optical microscope that costs less than a dollar to produce, is assembled from an origami-based folding design from a single sheet of paper with integrated lenses and electronics. With submicron resolution, Foldscope has already been widely embraced in educational contexts.
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Another recent project is a low-cost, sticker-like microfluidic chip that can collect thousands of nanoliter-volume droplets of saliva from mosquito bites that can be screened for pathogens. The chip would enable rapid, scalable, and low-cost collection of surveillance data that is critical for predicting and controlling mosquito-borne disease outbreaks. With remarkable breadth and imagination, Prakash defies traditional disciplinary boundaries in his coupling of basic research and fabrication of high-capability scientific instruments for widespread use in the field and classroom.