Frugal Science: A Toolmaker's Approach for Tackling Problems in Global Health, Ecological Monitoring, and Science Education
to
Manu Prakash, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Bioengineering
Senior Fellow, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
Associate Professor, by courtesy, Of Oceans and of Biology
Stanford University
We use interdisciplinary approaches including theory and experiments to understand how computation is embodied in biological matter. Examples include cognition in single cell protists and morphological computing in animals with no neurons and origins of complex behavior in multi-cellular systems. Broadly, we invent new tools for studying non-model organisms with significant focus on life in the ocean - addressing fundamental questions such as how do cells sense pressure or gravity? Finally, we are dedicated towards inventing and distributing “frugal science” tools to democratize access to science (previous inventions used worldwide: Foldscope, Abuzz), diagnostics of deadly diseases like malaria and convening global citizen science communities to tackle planetary scale environmental challenges such as mosquito surveillance or plankton surveillance by citizen sailors mapping the ocean in the age of Anthropocene.
*Masur*
Summary
Around the world, access to healthcare is often limited because of cost barriers. In this lecture, we will cover the philosophy of ‘frugal science’ which explores building and designing low-cost solutions for global problems such as infectious disease diagnostics, ecological surveillance, and science education. Through the lens of engineering, we will explore how to build a resilient innovation ecosystem for developing a range of low-cost solutions and deploy them at scale for global access. We will focus on a few case studies including diagnostics where we share the entire process of design, development, manufacturing, and dissemination with global impact in mind.
Learning Objectives:
- How to identify large scale problems ripe for ‘frugal science’ approach
- How to break down problems such that a citizen science driven approach could be explored for large scale dissemination
- Role of microscopy and machine learning in the future of disease diagnostics
https://videocast.nih.gov/watch=55005
This page was last updated on Wednesday, September 4, 2024