Foldscope, the ultra-low-cost paper microscope designed to aid disease diagnosis in developing regions, is back in the news. For a story appearing in today's San Francisco Chronicle, writer Stephanie Lee talked with Stanford bioengineer Manu Prakash, PhD, and others about the invention:
"Manu Prakash is one of the most creative scientists and engineers and his invention is really original," wrote Luke Lee, a bioengineering professor at UC Berkeley who works on global health problems, in an e-mail. "His elegant microscope is not only good for global health care, but also it will be a new educational tool to see the world."
The Foldscope was two years in the making, starting with trips that Prakash and his graduate students took through India, Thailand, Uganda and Nigeria. The team met people who were suffering from infectious diseases but couldn't afford conventional microscopes, which cost upward of $200, to diagnose their conditions.
"It was very clear that anything we came up with, if we can't scale it to the cost it needs to be, it doesn't really reach anywhere," Prakash said.
Prakash went on to tell Lee, "This is not just an academic project. We happen to be in an academic setting, but we are trying to reach society in a very strong way."
Previously: Free DIY microscope kits to citizen scientists with inspiring project ideas, Stanford bioengineer develops a 50-cent paper microscope, Stanford microscope inventor featured on TED Talk, Stanford bioengineer developing an "Electric Band-Aid Worm Test and Stanford bioengineers create an ultra-low-cost oral cancer screening tool
Photo by James Duncan Davidson/TED
