DevC, MD: Medical Solutions for Developing Countries

Early this year I had the chance to attend an entreprenurial seminar by George Whitesides at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  He provided some very interesting advice to the startup entrepreneur (such as myself oneday).  Included in this was a couple of homey words of advice, including making sure that each device you create “Solves a Problem”.  I can not underestimate the importance of this.  As this website continues to showcase inventions and innovative solutions, we have to ensure that we are solving a problem and displaying products that are going to become useful.

Another piece of advice that he gave was “Make simplicity an intimate business policy.”  He has done exactly this with the creation of Paper Diagnostics.  By combining microfluidics and one of the world most plentiful commodities–paper–Whitesides group has developed a method to test for infectious diseases using a single drop of blood or urine.  When the sample is introduced microfluidics takes over and the sample is mixed with reagents which generates visable reactions.  The results are then compared with a reference and a diagnosis is administered.