A Printable 50-cent Paper Microscope

A Stanford University student’s origami-based paper microscope could be the key to diagnosing and, eventually, eradicating malaria and other diseases in rural areas of the developing world.

Called the Foldscope, Manu Prakash’s low-cost microscope is built around a flat-packed design and can be assembled in a matter of minutes without the use of tools. Assembled from cardstock, the microscope is surprisingly rugged and features a cheap spherical lens that can magnify an object some 2,000 times.

While the cheapest version of the Foldscope can be mass-produced for as little as 50 cents, more expensive configurations featuring multiple lenses and filters have been developed by Prakash. Regardless of their complexity, however, each Foldscope has been designed so that it can be incinerated after one use, decreasing the chance that infectious diseases can be spread by contact with a Foldscope. 

“I wanted to make the best possible disease-detection instrument that we could almost distribute for free,” said Prakash. “What came out of this project is what we call use-and-throw microscopy.”

Lest the microscope be pigeonholed, the Foldscope is more than just a tool for the diagnosis of diseases. According to Stanford, Prakash is also working to have his microscope mass-produced for use as an educational tool. In fact, during a recent bioengineering course the PhD candidate used his invention to teach students about the physics of microscopy.

As cheaper scientific apparatuses become available one can only hope that interest in science, engineering and the tinkering that go along with them will become more commonplace. With the advent of these tools, maybe we’ll see a new generation of scientists spring up in the developing world, lending new perspectives and local knowledge to the pool of scientific inquiry. 

Image and Video Courtesy of Stanford University