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Diagnosing Anemia with a Little Elbow Grease

On the radio I heard about a device that several students at Rice created to help diagnose anemia in the developing world. The device acts as a centrifuge to separate the blood into red blood cells and plasma in just 10 minutes and without the use of electricity.

“The students really did an amazing job of taking very simple, low-cost materials and creating a device their research shows correlates nicely with hematocrit levels in the blood,” said Maria Oden, professor in the practice of engineering education and director of Rice’s Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen (OEDK). She was the team’s co-adviser with Richards-Kortum. “Many of the patients seen in developing world clinics are anemic, and it’s a severe health problem. Being able to diagnose it with no power, with a device that’s extremely lightweight, is very valuable,” she said.

Not exactly a replacement for the Ultracrit, but an innovative solution considering the manual actuation and low device cost. Nicely done.

The article on the Sally Centrifuge. The radio broadcast (mp3).



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