PLOS ONE, G. KORIR AND M. PRAKASHResearchers at Stanford University have designed a new microfluidic device that is powered by hand crank and programmed by paper punch cards, which they described last week (March 4) in PLOS One. Riffs on the device, based on a design for a children’s music box, should allow researchers to create portable, sturdy microfluidic devices for use in the classroom, as well and for diagnostic testing and environmental monitoring in areas with limited access to electricity and trained personnel.
“This paper is the most clever use of an inexpensive programmable toy to produce useful microfluidic systems at low cost,” Paul Yager, a professor of bioengineering at the University of Washington in Seattle who was not involved in the study, wrote in an e-mail to The Scientist. “This has a lot of potential for teaching and for performing processes at low cost in the developing world.”
Manu Prakash, coauthor of the new paper and an assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford, said that his team’s device manages to have high-tech capabilities despite its relatively low-tech operational requirements. “The tool has exactly the same specs as any of these other microfluidic technologies that are out there that are all automated and run by computers,” Prakash said.
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