A laboratory on your cell phone?

• April 19, 2024

Apparently, it will soon be necessary to attend at 6 o'clock in the morning to have a sample taken and have the results through some rapid diagnostic test when you get sick, because researchers have developed devices that already allow a laboratory in your own cell phone.
 

Aydogan Ozcan, assistant professor of electrical engineering and member of the NanoSystems California Institute at UCLA, has developed a new generation microscope that allows rapid diagnosis of a biological sample, through a universal reader (TRR).

It is the prototype of a universal digital reader that as an attached device RDT (Smart Rapid-Diagnostics-Test) that is subject to a smartphone or iPhone (based on Android), which "will allow us to understand cause-effect relationships on a much larger scale in the fight against infectious diseases," according to its creator.

This device, weighing only 65 grams and consisting of a low-cost lens, two AAA batteries and three LED arrays, offers the possibility of sending the electronically amplified image thanks to the quick diagnostic strips (positive or negative), be sent wirelessly for analysis, as shown in the following video:

In this way, this new device will allow a rapid diagnosis of the counting or alteration of white blood cells in the blood, which would indicate the presence of an infectious disease, such as malaria , tuberculosis , and even HIV , for a timely treatment and control.

This is the only device that has been tried to develop for this purpose, because scientists from the University of Berkeley called CellScope , which literally transforms a cell phone, into a powerful microscope thanks to the use of various modified magnifying lenses for the phone's camera.

Video Medicine: Cell Phone Use in the Research Lab (April 2024).