Tuberculosis is the world's top infectious killer. About 10 million people fall ill with the disease every year, and roughly 1.5 million people die because of it, according to the World Health Organization. Additionally, about one-quarter of the world's population is infected with the disease's causative agent Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Biomedical engineers at UC Davis have developed a microfluidic chip to test for latent tuberculosis. They hope the test will be cheaper, faster and more reliable than current testing for the disease.