When Power's Scarce and Someone's Sick – It's Sally Centrifuge to the Rescue!

By Karen Murphy on 07/22/2010 @ 03:10 PM

People get sick all over the world and doctors need certain tools to diagnose the problem. Big fancy equipment isn’t easily moved and power’s not always available in remote communities. When someone’s sick time is of the essence – the time it takes to send a blood sample out to a hospital and get the results can mean delays that cost lives.

Students at Rice University were asked to come up with ideas for equipment that would work without power, is portable and is inexpensive.

Enter Lila Kerr and Lauren Theis – two undergraduates who turned to a simple device that many of us have in our kitchens – a salad spinner.

In a solution short on cost but long on ingenuity, the duo modified a basic, every day salad spinner into an easy to use and transport centrifuge that successfully separates blood to allow diagnosis of anemia with no electricity. The device costs about $30, can process 30 individual 15 microliter blood samples at a time, and can separate blood into its component red cells and plasma in about 20 minutes.

In rural, under-served and impoverished parts of the world, a positive diagnosis for anemia is a critically important clue when looking for other health problems such as malnutrition, or serious chronic infectious diseases such as malaria and HIV/AIDS. Until now, blood samples taken in the field would have to be sent to a distant location complete with expensive laboratory centrifuges and electricity, while patients would be left waiting for the results — a lapse in time that can be deadly. Being able to diagnose the condition in real time with "Sally Centrifuge" would allow appropriate treatment to begin before… an illness progresses and a patient's condition deteriorates too drastically.

Ann Lewis’ most recent newsletter talks about Hillary’s 21st approach to lifting the developing world out of poverty. Something as simple as a cell phone means access to banking services or language lessons. New technology and social networking tools are already making a big difference.

Low tech ideas like Sally Centrifuge help in another way and students like Lila and Lauren are coming up with new ideas every day.

When you put all of these new approaches together, there’s no telling what we can accomplish!

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