Cellphones to substitute Microscopes?
By siliconindia   |   Tuesday, 10 November 2009, 14:50 IST
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Cellphones to substitute Microscopes?
Bangalore: Microscopes are tools used in identifying blood and other cells when screening for diseases like anemia, tuberculosis and malaria. An engineer at U.C.L.A. has adapted cellphones to do the work of microscopes in screening for diseases. The process creates holograms that can show, for example, a stained white blood cell. "We convert cellphones into devices that diagnose diseases," said Dr. Aydogan Ozcan, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Member of the California NanoSystems Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, who created the devices. He has formed a company, Microskia, to commercialize the technology. "The adapted phones may be used for screening in places far from hospitals, technicians or diagnostic laboratories," said Dr. Ozcan. In one prototype, a slide holding a finger prick of blood can be inserted over the phone's camera sensor. The sensor detects the slide's contents and sends the information wirelessly to a hospital or regional health center. For instance, the phones can detect the asymmetric shape of diseased blood cells or other abnormal cells, or note an increase of white blood cells, a sign of infection. "Dr. Ozcan's devices provide a simple solution to a complex problem. This is an inexpensive way to eliminate a microscope and sample biological images with a basic cellphone camera instead. If you are in a place where getting to a microscope or medical facility is not straightforward, this is a really smart solution," said Ahmet Yildiz, Assistant Professor of Physics and Molecular Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. These devices are compact in part because they have eliminated the central element in a microscope - its lenses. "There's no need for lenses in these devices because the magnification can be done electronically. You don't need optics at all," said David J. Brady, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University and Director of its Imaging and Spectroscopy Program. For this electronic system of magnification, inexpensive light-emitting diodes added to the basic cellphones shine their light on a sample slide placed over the phone's camera chip. Some of the light waves hit the cells suspended in the sample, scattering off the cells and interfering with the other light waves. "This system may someday lead to a rapid way to process blood and other samples. It is potentially much faster than a microscope," said Bahram Jalali, Applied Physicist and Professor of Electrical Engineering at U.C.L.A. "The cellphones' systems may be particularly helpful in screening for malaria," said Yvonne Bryson, Professor and Chief of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Division at the David Geffen School of Medicine at U.C.L.A. She has collaborated with Dr. Ozcan on several grants. "Right now you need a microscope, and you need trained people. But this device would allow you to work without either in a remote area," added Dr. Bryson.

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