Prakash Lab at Stanford

Affordable microscope speeds up malaria diagnosis with AI The Octopi microscope autonomously analyzes blood samples in minutes, detecting malaria-infected cells among millions. Its creators hope it will accelerate the fight against malaria.

🌎 @prakashlab.bsky.social has developed Octopi, a robotic device that diagnoses malaria in blood smears faster, more accurately & more accessibly. With an open software architecture and powered by AI & battery or solar energy, Octopi is 100x more efficient—and affordable.
#Malaria #AI #GlobalHealth

“Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach them to fish and you feed them for a lifetime”

With ODION and Octopi, we’re building a platform that lets anyone create AI-powered diagnostics for the diseases that matter most locally.

Connect with us if interested at ODION.org

YouTube video by Cephla Self-driving microscopes

12 years in the making - we are finally scaling up our “universal diagnostics” platform. m.youtube.com/watch?v=gbeg...

Read about the global program here: news.stanford.edu/stories/2026...

If you are passionate about bringing cutting edge tools to work for “everyone” - reach out and engage.

Cellular Olympics: Ultrafast Cellular Motility Across the Tree of Life Surprisingly, many single-celled organisms and specialized cell types can achieve speed and acceleration significantly faster than those of multicellular animals. These remarkable cellular machines mu...

Same yet different - www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

Microbial Olympics: Super-duper one-celled athletes They race, they leap, they spin, they shoot. Meet the organisms for whom physical prowess is more than sport — it’s a matter of life and death.

Cellular Olympics - now in Knowable magazine! Enjoy this with your favorite Olympic sport!

knowablemagazine.org/content/arti...

Frugal Science (BIOE 271) Winter 2026 Course Application As a society, we find ourselves surrounded by planetary-scale challenges ranging from lack of equitable access to health care to environmental degradation to dramatic loss of biodiversity. One common ...

Registration link as a Google webform: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Prakash Lab

For a deeper sense of frugal science philosphyband principles behind this Stanford class - see our past projects several of which have scaled to reach millions across the globe.

PrakashLab.stanford.edu

#frugalScience #Stanford

Please fill short application form to be considered as a “global cohort” student. No fees, no restrictions. We are looking for passionate individuals that like to work in teams with a “frugalist” philosophy to find scalable solutions to global challenges.

Deadline: 9th January

lnkd.in/gxftkgz

If you are passionate about building scalable solutions to some of the hardest and challenging problems in global health, environmental solutions, science education and more - consider joining the 2026 cohort. This year we will also have a special set of mentors dedicated to ocean based solutions.

After all the anticipation - FrugalScience 2026 - a collaborative global collective is LIVE again for 2026 season.

www.frugalscience.org

Apply - deadline 9th January (midnight)

My first PhD paper with Prakash Lab is out in its final form! Here we uncover the many folded forms of Placozoa and how cilia unfold them. Enjoy the paper and our stop motion summary of this story!
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

priceless comment from your kids! give them a hi-five ✋

Ok, so my 11 yo says he is going to work it out as well, but has informed me that he'll probably need a lot of machinery. He has to do some unfolding to get started, as apparently you can't do inventing in school uniform!

Aha - Helen - what a wonderful observation 🤣 I tested the video on my kids and the anticipation of self folding tech got them super excited to make it a reality.

Amazing research and such a fantastic scicomm video.

I'd like to show it to my kids, but I'm afraid that it'll backfire and they'll use it to explain why all the clothes in their cupboards are unfolded despite the fact they were folded when they went in....

How a brainless animal folds itself with origami-like precision Studying one of the simplest animals, placozoa, Stanford’s Prakash Lab uncovered how it folds itself into complex shapes – revealing new insights into a fundamental cellular feature and the origins of...

(10/10) Read the paper for details, or watch this incredible short film by @cbrannon.bsky.social with a whimsical take on "self folding laundry" a technology we have all been waiting for 😀 news.stanford.edu/stories/2025...

(9/n) This work allows us to imagine a new chapter in "active origami" - a completely new class of material transformation algorithms. @cbrannon.bsky.social has 2 more stories we will be sharing soon to unpack the crazy world of folding. Who knew a crumpled piece of paper could inspire all this.

(8/n) In paper, we show this "brainless substrate" implements unfolding algorithms in emergent dynamics of ciliary flocks. Thus rather than a passive "roll downhill" mechanism that would get stuck easily, these ancient animals implement remarkable emergent algorithm embedded in the material itself.

(7/n) To really push bounds of what this self folding and unfolding "active material" can achieve - we show some of the longest "string animals" also have capacity to unfold to flat sheets - all without a brain!! Even topological "toroidal" animals can unfold. Try doing that with a piece of paper 😉

(6/n) Using a really unique assay, we showed that shape and form of this animal is "substrate dependent". In fact, Placozoa continuously fold into new shapes (transformers) when devoid of any substrate. Below Placozoa is falling forever in gravity machine. Not sure how the animal feels about this 😀

(5/n) @cbrannon.bsky.social started with experiments mapping for the first time real time folding in an animal that has always been described as a "flat pancake". These are some of the most beautiful shape shifting forms I have seen in nature. All folding in real time

(4/n) but for complex folds to evolve, something simpler might have existed 500 million years ago - a kind of playground of folding. And studying simple marine animal - we discovered this playground of cilia driven tissue folding. First example, as far as I know, where ciliary forces fold tissue!

(3/n) From the depths of the Red Sea, we study a "brainless animal" that inspired us to rethink evolutionary roots of where folds emerge in animal form. If you think about it, our brain, our heart, our lungs - are just all intricate folded sheets. But the programs are genetically controlled.

Cilia-driven epithelial folding and unfolding in an early diverging animal | PNAS Multicellular organisms utilize epithelial folding to achieve remarkable three-dimensional forms. During embryonic development, stereotypical epith...

(2/n) In our latest paper in PNAS, led by an incredible graduate student @cbrannon.bsky.social - we show a bizarre world of "cellular plate tectonics". Imagine a self-folding origami with a mind of its own. A living sheet that does not need any instructions to fold.. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

YouTube video by PrakashLab Self-folding laundry

(1/n) What if you never had to make your bed? What if your laundry could fold itself? Folding is everywhere around us - but did you know that folding flat sheets are at the ❤️ of diversity of shapes in the animal world - since 500 million years ago. Our latest work: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nudC...

Interview with Manu Prakash ABSTRACT. Manu Prakash is Associate Professor of Bioengineering, Biology (courtesy) and Oceans (courtesy) at Stanford University and co-founder of Foldscope Instruments, Planktoscope and Cephla. Manu ...

You can read Manu's recent @jcellsci.bsky.social interview here: journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

Our next extraordinary biologist is Manu Prakash, plenary speaker at the Biologists @ 100 conference, who was recently interviewed for @jcellsci.bsky.social. #100biologists @prakashlab.bsky.social

Cephla is at #SfN2025 through Wednesday 11/19. Come to our booth at 3217 to check out our Squid+ spinning confocal and fluidics system + learn how we help accelerate developing/disseminating/adopting new methods and scale data production capacities!
#HCS #LiveCell #SpatialOmics #ExpansionMicroscopy

⬆️ This is the way! ⬆️

yeah! 🎃