Week 14: Frugal Science, Microbiome

Week 14 cover Week 14 cover

Context
Per the course page: no assigned homework this week. Use the time to consolidate notes, polish documentation, and advance final projects.

“There’s NOTHING HERE.” (course joke image) “There’s NOTHING HERE.” (course joke image)

Optional exploration — Frugal science

  • Foldscope: <$1 paper microscope enabling field microscopy and STEM education at scale. Over 1.8M units have been distributed globally. https://foldscope.com/ (overview); background summary and impact. :contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0}
  • Paperfuge: ~20-cent, hand-powered centrifuge capable of ~125,000 rpm for sample prep in low-resource settings. Paper + string, electricity-free. See the Nature Biomedical Engineering paper and project page. :contentReference[oaicite:1]{index=1}
  • Talk (TED): Manu Prakash demos paper-based tools (Foldscope, Paperfuge) and the ethos of frugal science. :contentReference[oaicite:2]{index=2}
Warning

Safety & scope
These are concepts and references, not lab instructions. Follow institutional biosafety guidance; don’t culture unknown environmental or clinical samples without approvals/training.

Optional reading — Microbiome primers

  • NIH Human Microbiome Project (HMP): accessible overview slide deck (PDF). Good for scope and key findings. :contentReference[oaicite:3]{index=3}
  • iHMP / HMP Phase 2: NIH article summarizing focus areas (e.g., preterm birth, IBD, T2D) and cloud analysis efforts. :contentReference[oaicite:4]{index=4}

If you want to add something this week

  • Tighten your project documentation (figures, captions, citations).
  • Add a short reflection on how frugal tools or microbiome thinking might inform your project (constraints, data, deployment).
  • Make a punch-list for final deliverables.