When was the last time you washed your hands, took a shower, or had a glass of water? Probably this very day. But more than half the world's population can't take these activities for granted. For 4.4 billion people, the only water available is unsafe to drink, and risky to use for other activities too. That's because in developing nations like India — where I was born and raised — outbreaks from waterborne diseases like typhoid and cholera are ubiquitous.
In the early 1990s, I was working as a physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ("Berkeley Lab") when I heard about a devastating cholera outbreak in my home country. It infected hundreds of thousands of people and killed more than 2,000. With vast scientific resources at my disposal at the lab, I knew I might be able help prevent the next outbreak. So, on my own time, I started to study waterborne pathogens with the aim to develop a new way to make water drinkable that would be affordable and effective in rural areas of low income countries.
