> 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 magn

> 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.