In 2016, a thunderstorm asthma event in Melbourne left 10 people dead and thousands in hospital. It was a dramatic outcome that exposed a serious issue - there was no easy way to detect pollen in the air. Previous technology would take a whole day to complete a scan and produce a report. And those machines were massive.
Enter Dr Kira Morgan Hughes, a Deakin PHD graduate who knew there had to be a better way.
So she created it.
Her invention makes it possible to detect pollen in the air within the hour. Oh, and it’s the size of a small button. This is the story of how a young fiction writer, who nearly flunked chemistry in high school, created a device that could potentially save lives.
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