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I wanna know how a mechanical engineer happens to learn enough about malaria for the thought to even cross his mind to check the iron in the blood with a magnet

I wanna know how a mechanical engineer happens to learn enough about malaria for the thought to even cross his mind to check the iron in the blood with a magnet. What's that thought process like? Fighting malaria is something I'm interested in pursuing, but my background is heavily in the computer science arena. How do I go about finding out enough about malaria to be able to actually contribute to the problem? (And I don't mean merely writing a check to the Anti Malaria Foundation or whatever.)

kanzure 12y ago
> How do I go about finding out enough about malaria to be able to actually contribute to the problem? Read as much as you can: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=malaria http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=malaria
deleted 12y ago
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w1ntermute 12y ago
> I wanna know how a mechanical engineer happens to learn enough about malaria for the thought to even cross his mind to check the iron in the blood with a magnet. A lot of mechanical engineers in academia are actually working on (or looking to work on) research that has medical applications, because you can get funding from the NIH. Although academics are technically supposed to be "independent," the funding climate ultimately drives research interests. > What's that thought process like? Well, presuming that he was already well aware of the ability to use magnets to move minuscule quantities of iron, it starts out with something like this: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=human+body+iron http://lmgtfy.com/?q=human+body+iron Note that it doesn't have to start out with malaria. In fact, you don't have to know anything about human disease when starting out.
pmorici 12y ago
Per the article it sounds like he worked with a malaria expert at the University he attended before going to MIT. "He founded DDG in Cleveland, where he earned his undergraduate degree at Case Western Reserve University. Lewandowski’s cofounder and former faculty adviser, Brian T. Grimberg, is an assistant professor of international health at the university’s medical school, and a specialist in malaria."
atmosx 12y ago
First read a couple of papers in Malaria. You can easily go through terminology using wikipedia/google. If you don't have a strong background in human pathophysiology it's going to take some time, but given the right amount of time it's not thing really hard. You'll just give the time for some concepts to sink in. What I'd like to see is an open source version of this machine which can be easily reproduced in pure countries. HOWEVER, smart as it may seem, if I don't see some triple-checked hard-data, it's hard to tell if the magnets approach actually works and here is were professional clinical trials are made. Because in real life it's extremely hard to take say 5.000 blood samples from people who might be infected (e.g. Africans) right down the results, then go to a professional lab and compare the samples. Write down the results, find in which conditions concentration of 'Fe' is high in blood. Probably talking to the IDI[1] would be a nice first step and so on. [1]: http://www.irondisorders.org/iron-overload http://www.irondisorders.org/iron-overload
- Jemaclus 12y ago
  Awesome. Thanks for the tip!

kanzure 12y ago

> How do I go about finding out enough about malaria to be able to actually contribute to the problem? Read as much as you can: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=malaria http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=malaria

deleted 12y ago

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w1ntermute 12y ago

> I wanna know how a mechanical engineer happens to learn enough about malaria for the thought to even cross his mind to check the iron in the blood with a magnet. A lot of mechanical engineers in academia are actually working on (or looking to work on) research that has medical applications, because you can get funding from the NIH. Although academics are technically supposed to be "independent," the funding climate ultimately drives research interests. > What's that thought process like? Well, presuming that he was already well aware of the ability to use magnets to move minuscule quantities of iron, it starts out with something like this: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=human+body+iron http://lmgtfy.com/?q=human+body+iron Note that it doesn't have to start out with malaria. In fact, you don't have to know anything about human disease when starting out.

pmorici 12y ago

Per the article it sounds like he worked with a malaria expert at the University he attended before going to MIT. "He founded DDG in Cleveland, where he earned his undergraduate degree at Case Western Reserve University. Lewandowski’s cofounder and former faculty adviser, Brian T. Grimberg, is an assistant professor of international health at the university’s medical school, and a specialist in malaria."

atmosx 12y ago

First read a couple of papers in Malaria. You can easily go through terminology using wikipedia/google. If you don't have a strong background in human pathophysiology it's going to take some time, but given the right amount of time it's not thing really hard. You'll just give the time for some concepts to sink in. What I'd like to see is an open source version of this machine which can be easily reproduced in pure countries. HOWEVER, smart as it may seem, if I don't see some triple-checked hard-data, it's hard to tell if the magnets approach actually works and here is were professional clinical trials are made. Because in real life it's extremely hard to take say 5.000 blood samples from people who might be infected (e.g. Africans) right down the results, then go to a professional lab and compare the samples. Write down the results, find in which conditions concentration of 'Fe' is high in blood. Probably talking to the IDI[1] would be a nice first step and so on. [1]: http://www.irondisorders.org/iron-overload http://www.irondisorders.org/iron-overload

Jemaclus 12y ago
Awesome. Thanks for the tip!