URI_Research_Magazine_Momentum_Fall_2015_Melissa-McCarthy

Putting Paper to the Test

written by Dan Kopin

Mohammad Faghri, (second from right) Professor, Mechanical, Industrial and Systems Engineering, Constantine Anagnostopoulos, (second from left) Adjunct Professor, Mechanical, Industrial and Systems Engineering and their students

Mohammad Faghri, professor of mechanical, industrial and systems engineering at the University of Rhode Island (URI), once had a student approach him with a terrible problem. The student was worried about contracting HIV. Embarrassed to get tested and having a doctor know the result, Faghri’s student did not know what to do.

When Faghri and one of his graduate students invented “lab-on-paper,” a groundbreaking platform technology that could change point-of-care diagnostics, they had that student in mind. Point-of-care diagnostics is defined by the College of American Pathologists as tests designed to be used at or near the site where the patient is located, that do not require permanent dedicated space, and that are performed outside the physical facilities of the clinical laboratories. As an inexpensive and autonomous test, the lab-on-paper fits the bill. Faghri, who began at URI as an associate professor in 1983, has written multiple books on heat transfer and fluid flow, his areas of expertise. In 2004, he received the prestigious Heat Transfer Memorial Award. In recent years, however, he has taken heed of larger trends in innovation – venturing outside of mechanical engineering and into medical diagnostics. “Over the past 15 years, everything has become miniaturized,” Faghri says.

Page 20 | The University of Rhode Island { momentum: Research & Innovation }