A cell phone with Omnivus device attached for water testing.

“Each year Cholera kills around 143,000 people in poorer countries”. Gates Foundation, on Aug 15th tweeted an article by NPR that shares the statistics on death caused by Cholera each year and brings focus on the importance of being able to detect cholera bacterium in water cheaply and swiftly. In this article NPR highlighted a handheld device ‘not much bigger than a smartphone’ that can detect the cholera bacterium in water within thirty minutes. “What if you could put a drop of water into a miniature laboratory — not much bigger than a smartphone — and find out whether the water contains the bacterium that causes cholera?”

This ‘miniature laboratory’, OmniVis, is a device that originated in the labs between Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering School at Purdue. Dr. Katherine Clayton, a previous PhD student, worked with Professors Tamara Kinzer-Ursem and Jacqueline Linnes, to create the technology for detecting Vibrio cholerae in water. With the support from the Shah Family Global Innovation Lab in GEPP, Purdue, Vodafone and Cisco Global Problem Solvers, the technology evolved into a startup OmniVis, now based between Indianapolis, IN and San Francisco, CA. Cofounded by Katherine Clayton, Tamara Kinzer-Ursem, Jacqueline Linnes and Steven Wereley of Purdue, it is a great example of, as Gates foundation puts it, ‘technology having the power to revolutionize health and save lives around the world.

Related Links:

• This Handy New Device Might Help KO Cholera
• Purdue researcher receives 'Grand Challenges Explorations' grant to develop low-cost HIV-testing method