Credit: Mike D'Ambrosio and Matt Bakalar, Fletcher Lab, UC Berkeley
See how the device works. Video credit: UC Berkeley Campus Life YouTube channel.
CellScope Loa is a smartphone microscope. A parasitic worm, named Loa-loa in Africa spreads like rampant disease. This new device just detects the parasite in victims blood quickly in just two minutes thus helping the health worker to administer right drug to kill the parasite.
In an another application, specialists of University of Illinois have built up a new application of iPhone that can fill in as a complete versatile research center and can detect microbes, proteins, poisons, virus and different other organisms. It is a biosensor that uses iPhone’s brilliant camera and ample processing power to do such things.
iPhone Biosensor. Image credit: University of Illinois.
We’re interested in biodetection that needs to be performed outside of the laboratory,
said Brian T. Cunningham, team leader and a professor of electrical and computer engineering and of bioengineering at the University of Illinois.
Smartphones are making a big impact on our society – the way we get our information, the way we communicate. And they have really powerful computing capability and imaging. A lot of medical conditions might be monitored very inexpensively and noninvasively using mobile platforms like phones. They can detect molecular things, like pathogens, disease biomarkers or DNA, things that are currently only done in big diagnostic labs with lots of expense and large volumes of blood.
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