TED Senior Fellow Frederick Balagadde invented the micro-chemostat, a first-of-its-kind, dime-sized piece of transparent plastic that can orchestrate the behavior of living cells.

Why you should listen

Frederick Balagadde is a research scientist in the Engineering Technologies Division at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. As a graduate student at Caltech and Stanford University, Frederick invented the micro-chemostat: a first-of-its-kind microfabricated fluidic chip that mimics a biological cell culture environment in a highly complex web of tiny pumps and human hair-sized water hoses, all controlled by a multitasking computer.

Frederick's pioneering research has attracted interest in the scientific community, including a publication in Science Magazine.

Frederick was a TEDGlobal 2009 Fellow and is a TED Senior Fellow.

What others say

“Silicon microelectronics have made computation ever faster, cheaper, more accessible and more powerful. Microfluidic chips, feats of miniscule plumbing where more than a hundred cell cultures or other experiments can take place in a rubbery silicone integrated circuit the size of a quarter, could bring a similar revolution of automation to biological and medical research.” — Stanford University News

Frederick Balagadde’s TED talk