Back in April I wrote about a project using cell phones to drive down the price of ultrasound devices from $10,000 to $200 and make them available to third world nations.
A Cell-Phone Microscope for Disease Detection builds on this theme of using cell phones with medical devices:
----------
In a twist on traditional smart-phone accessories, researchers have demonstrated fluorescent microscopy using a physical attachment to an ordinary cell phone. The researchers behind the device say that it could identify and track diseases like tuberculosis (TB) and malaria in developing countries with limited access to health care, or in rural areas of the U.S.
The "Cellscope," which came out of an optics-class project at the University of California, Berkeley, could capture and perform simple analysis of magnified images of blood and sputum samples, or transmit the images over the cell-phone network for analysis elsewhere.
The contraption--a tube-like extension hooked onto the cell phone with a modified belt clip--works just like a traditional microscope, using a series of lenses that magnify blood or spit samples on a microscope slide. To detect TB, for example, a spit sample is infused with an inexpensive dye called auramine. An "excitation" wavelength is emitted by the light source--a blue light-emitting diode (LED) on the opposite end of the device from the cell phone--and absorbed by the auramine dye in the spit sample, which fluoresces green to illuminate TB bacteria. Then automated software can count the green bacteria for a diagnosis in real time, or the image can be transmitted via cell network to a separate facility where doctors can analyze it and respond.
----------
The article has a cool picture showing the device.
This device would allow third world nations a greater ability to detect diseases like TB.
Who would have thought that cell phones might make such a difference in the world of medicine?
It is an amazing world.
----------
Technorati tags: medical, technology, Cell phone
No comments:
Post a Comment