Angry pathogens, how to get rid of them: introducing microfluidics for waterborne pathogen separation to children

Jimenez, M. and Bridle, H. L. (2015) Angry pathogens, how to get rid of them: introducing microfluidics for waterborne pathogen separation to children. Lab on a Chip, 15(4), pp. 947-957. (doi: 10.1039/c4lc00944d) (PMID:25435144)

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present a new approach for introducing to a non-scientific audience a major public health issue: access to safe drinking water. Access to safe drinking water is a privilege in developed countries and an urgent need in the third world, which implies always more efficient and reliable engineering tools to be developed. As a major global challenge it is important to make children aware of this problem for understanding (i) what safe drinking water is, (ii) how ingenious techniques are developed for this purpose and (iii) the role of microfluidics in this area. This paper focuses on different microfluidic-based techniques to separate and detect pathogens in drinking water that have been adapted to be performed by a young audience in a simplified, recreational and interactive way.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: HB would like to acknowledge The Royal Academy of Engineering/EPSRC for her research fellowship. Both HB and MJ would like to acknowledge EU funding for the project “AQUAVALENS: protecting the health of Europeans by improving methods for the detection of pathogens in drinking water and water used in food preparation”.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Jimenez, Dr Melanie
• Authors: Jimenez, M., and Bridle, H. L.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Biomedical Engineering
• Journal Name: Lab on a Chip
• Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry
• ISSN: 1473-0197
• ISSN (Online): 1473-0189
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2015 The Royal Society of Chemistry
• First Published: First published in Lab on a Chip 15(4):947-957
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a creative commons license