Manu Prakash

Prakash received the MacArthur Fellowship in September 2016. He and his team at Stanford University have developed a synchronous computer that operates using the physics of moving water droplets. His work focuses on frugal innovation that makes medicine, computing and microscopy accessible to more people across the world.

Manu Prakash studied at Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. The field of work recorded is bioengineering. Places of work recorded in the authority are Stanford. Employment is recorded with Stanford University. Work by Manu Prakash is recorded in the collections of Museum of Modern Art. Distinctions recorded are MacArthur Fellows Program.

• Name — Manu Prakash • Field — Bioengineering • Workplaces — Stanford University • Education — MIT, IIT Kanpur • Doctoral Advisor — Neil Gershenfeld • Known for — Foldscope, Paperfuge • Awards — MacArthur Fellows Program (2016), TED Senior Fellow (2011)

Manu Prakash was born in Meerut, India. He earned a BTech in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and an M.S. and PhD in Applied Physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

A Foldscope is an optical microscope that can be assembled from simple components, including a sheet of paper and a lens. 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 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 diagnosis in remote areas.