Guido Núñez-Mujica Fellow 2010

Living in: Mérida — Venezuela

Venture: LavaAmp

Portable, rugged, inexpensive infectious diseases detector that fits in your hand.

Operating in: North America, South America, Global

Impact Area: Public Health, Technology

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"Forward looking geek"

Basics

Describe yourself briefly.

I am a computational biologist from Venezuela. A nonconformist, forward-looking geek. I want to use research to solve local problems with our own means.
I have experience in low cost biotechnology, molecular biology and IT.

Describe your Unreasonable Venture in 100 words or less.

LavaAmp is a portable, rugged, inexpensive thermal cycler that can perform reliable DNA tests for infectious diseases in low resource environments and fits in the palm of your hand. LavaAmp is not a diagnostic method for one specific disease, but a hardware platform that can be used to test for many different conditions. The vision for LavaAmp is part of a new, evidence-based Public Health approach to managing both new pandemics and neglected diseases.