20-Cent Lifesaving Device

(originally aired Feb. 13, 2017) Guest: Manu Prakash, PhD, Assistant Professor of Bioengineering, Stanford University If doctors want to detect bloodborne diseases like malaria, HIV and tuberculosis, they have to spin the patient’s blood in a centrifuge to separate out the pathogens from the components of the blood. But centrifuges are expensive and require electricity, and bloodborne diseases are often found in third-world countries where there’s little money and no electricity available to healthcare professionals. But a bioengineer from Stanford recently invented a hand-powered centrifuge that only costs 20 cents to make.