They’re mastering manufacturing
As the United States seeks to reinvigorate its job market and move past economic recession, MIT News examines manufacturing’s role in the country’s economic future through this series on work at the Institute around manufacturing.For millions of HIV-positive people in the developing world, accurate measurement of their medical condition is invaluable. So in recent years, Daktari Diagnostics, a Cambridge-based startup, has been developing a small, mobile diagnostic device that it believes can perform effective cell counts on such patients.But like a lot of startups, Daktari has faced manufacturing hurdles. In particular, Daktari had to find the best way of mass-producing devices that include a pair of electrodes about 100 microns wide — roughly the width of a hair — on a plastic backing, with another hair’s width in between them.To solve the problem, Daktari turned, in part, to MIT graduate students pursuing a distinctive degree: the master of engineering in...