Manu Prakash is an Indian-American scientist who is a professor of bioengineering at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

. Manu was born in Meerut, India. He is best known for his contributions to the Foldscope and Paperfuge. Prakash received the

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and ...

in September 2016. He and his team at

have developed a synchronous computer that operates using the physics of moving water droplets. His work focuses on

frugal innovation Frugal innovation or frugal engineering is the process of reducing the complexity and cost of a good and its production. Usually this refers to removing nonessential features from a durable good, such as a car or telephone, in order to sell it in ...

that makes medicine, computing and microscopy accessible to more people across the world.

Early life and education

Manu Prakash was born in

Meerut Meerut (, ISO 15919, ISO: ''Mēraṭh'') is a city in the western region of the States and union territories of India, Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Located in the Meerut district, it is northeast of the national capital, New Delhi, and is ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. He earned a

BTech A Bachelor of Technology (BTech) is an undergraduate degree that is awarded for a higher education program in engineering. Countries Australia In Australia, the Bachelor of Technology degree is offered by RMIT University, Edith Cowan Univ ...

in computer science and engineering from the

Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT- Kanpur or IIT-K) is a public institute of technology located in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India. As an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), it was declared an Institute of National Importance by ...

and an M.S. and PhD in Applied Physics from

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

Notable work

Foldscope

A Foldscope is an

optical microscope The optical microscope, also referred to as a light microscope, is a type of microscope that commonly uses visible light and a system of lenses to generate magnified images of small objects. Optical microscopes are the oldest design of micros ...

that can be assembled from simple components, including a sheet of paper and a

lens A lens is a transmissive optical device that focuses or disperses a light beam by means of refraction. A simple lens consists of a single piece of transparent material, while a compound lens consists of several simple lenses (''elements'') ...

. It was developed by Jim Cybulski and Manu Prakash and designed to cost less than US$1 to build. It is part of the "frugal science" movement, which aims to make cheap and easy tools available for scientific use in the developing world.

Paperfuge

Paperfuge is a hand-powered ultralow-cost paper centrifuge designed by Manu Prakash and members of the Prakash Lab. Inspired by the whirlygig toy configuration, Dr. Manu designed a centrifuge using the toy's design and Supercoiling-mediated ultrafast spinning dynamics. The Paperfuge can be used to separate Plasma and RBC for rapid

Malaria Malaria is a Mosquito-borne disease, mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects vertebrates and ''Anopheles'' mosquitoes. Human malaria causes Signs and symptoms, symptoms that typically include fever, Fatigue (medical), fatigue, vomitin ...

diagnosis in remote areas.

Awards

TED Fellow 2009, TED Fellow 2010, TED Senior Fellow 2011 Gates Foundation Global Health “Explorations” Grant 2012 NIH Director's New Innovator Award 2015 MacArthur Fellow 2016 Unilever Colworth Prize 2020

References

External links

* https://web.stanford.edu/group/prakash-lab/ * https://www.foldscope.com/ Living people IIT Kanpur alumni Stanford University faculty American inventors American academics of Indian descent MacArthur Fellows Scientists from the San Francisco Bay Area Year of birth missing (living people) Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni {{US-inventor-stub