By Anya Pogharian , as told to Samuel Anderson
For a high school skill project , Anya Pogharian created an artificial kidney . But after volunteering at a hospital , the Montreal - ground 18 - yr - onetime turn her plenty on inventing a cheap and portable dialysis car , making it accessible to people in develop countries . She ’s still too youthful for med school , but she just might transform health forethought . Here ’s how .
I ’d never heard of dialysis when I get volunteer at a infirmary , but I became concerned after working the dialysis storey . The people would come after work for three - hour treatments [ to filtrate toxin from their blood after kidney failure ] . While they were addict up to the machine , we ’d play lotto .
I learn about the huge need for dialysis in developing countries . A distinctive dialysis machine costs about $ 30,000 and require ultrapure water , which is difficult to occur by . That ’s why I settle to contrive my own portable , affordable dialysis machine .
I ’d never forge anything , so to learn more I determine up an appointment with a nephrologist . Even the doctor engage the machines do n’t necessarily jazz the mechanics . But by reading possessor ’s manuals online , I learned how they worked . I went out and bought the essential parts : a pump , the pressure and temperature sensor , and a filter . Then , I created a circuit , an line house of cards detector , and a microcontroller . [ It cost about $ 600 , one - fiftieth the cost of the dialysis machine on the market . ] I test it with water and food color . After 300 hr of work , I show the first prototype at my school . It took the bronze plunder at the Canada Wide Science Fair .
After tweaking the intent that summer , I was ready to run actual blood through it . I took it to a blood contribution organization and snare it up to a four - litre bag . The sample distribution was full of K and other impurities because it had been stored for six mean solar day , but we added even more . We require to see what the machine could do . After an time of day all the impurities were reduced and the potassium was gone . We could have cease after 20 minutes .
I ’ve take heed from people in India , Pakistan , and South America who want to buy my machine . It is n’t ready for the public yet , but my work is n’t slow down . Within the yr there has to be something that people in developing commonwealth can afford . The need is non - transferable .
