By Lorelei Laird (DC’01)

Anantha Chandrakasan.In regions near the equator, people are at risk of contracting malaria from mosquitos. It’s a treatable disease if quickly detected. However, symptoms often don’t appear for days, which can have deadly consequences. Last summer, the laboratories of CMU President Subra Suresh (above) and MIT’s Anantha Chandrakasan published, in the journal Lab on a Chip, findings on recognizing electrical properties of infected cells, which could lead to early malarial detection and save countless lives. The researchers are now working to integrate this breakthrough into a portable detection device that could be used throughout the world.