:
Austin McCoy
  • Background
  • 2015 Year
  • Overview
  • Trip To India- Blog
  • Thermocyler
  • About Me
  • Thermocycler Requirements
  • Sponsors
  • Links To My Project
  • Broadcom Competition Photos
  • Contact

Thermocycler

This is a a picture of me and my Mayo Clinic mentor, Dr. Chris Pierret.  Dr. Pierret's personal stories of his experiences in Africa and India and how diseases hurt people and families around the world motivated me to combine engineering and technology with genetics and PCR to make a low-cost thermocycler.

The end result?   It is still a work in progress, but in this picture, I was presenting my second and third versions of my thermocycler.   I am currently working on my fourth revision.

What is a Thermocycler?
The importance of a thermocycler for detecting and stopping the spread of diseases is discussed here:

Purpose:
I believe that the essential science behind the thermocycler can be boiled down and remade with modern electronics for 100X less cost, locally sustainable, portable, and work in remote regions where electricity is less reliable.  My theory is that lower cost equipment = more test equipment = faster testing = better disease detection and prevention = lives saved and healthier people.  

Thermocycler Photos

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