Last December a trio of Vanderbilt researchers — Rick Haselton, professor of biomedical engineering, David Wright, associate professor of chemistry, and Ray Mernaugh, associate professor of biochemistry — snagged a $1 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a “low tech, high science” method for collecting and preparing the patient samples in under-developed areas. Haselton’s students dubbed the device the “Extractionator.”
We announced the grant in the story “‘Extractionator’ could bring high-tech medical diagnostics to rural areas.”
Five months ago, it consisted of little more than a length of plastic tubing, a large magnet and a handful of small magnetized beads. The project is described, more or less, in the June issue of Discover magazine.