Mobile Medical Lab — the $10 Phone Microscope

kkleiner writes "Aydogan Ozcan of UCLA has developed a microscope attachment for a cell phone – turning the device into a sort of mobile medical lab. It's both lightweight (~38g or 1.5 oz) and cheap (parts cost around $10). The cellphone microscope can analyze blood and saliva samples for microparticles, red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, and water borne parasites. Ozcan and his team have recently won three prestigious awards for the device: a Grand Challenges award from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (worth $100,000), the National Geographic Emerging Explorer award (worth $10,000), and the CAREER award from the National Science Foundation ($400,000). With these funds, Ozcan plans on starting case studies in Africa to see how the microscope can help revolutionize global medicine."

Comments

tricorder

[Foofoobar]

And the tricorder has been invented. Dammit Jim, I'm playing Tetris not examining blood cells!

Re:tricorder

[JustinRLynn]

Do both! Get a Dr Mario UI for it.

Re:tricorder

[Gilmoure]

Check out these Lab-On-A-Chip setups. They're getting real close to chemical analysis tricorders.

Amateur DIY diagnosis?

[therealobsideus]

Only thing I would be worried about is (if this hits a free market and consumers can buy the products for this) that people interested in diagnosing their own conditions would attempt self diagnosis. This may drastically help the NGOs in third world countries who are limited by funds to help treat those without access to even basic healthcare. Who knows, it may even bring down the cost of medical care here in the US. Hey, one can dream right?

Re:Amateur DIY diagnosis?

[sjames]

I would be more concerned about people who must either diagnose themselves or go undiagnosed being blocked by well meaning (or not) regulators that can't face up to the fact that more people suffer and die because of them than in spite of them.

Re:Amateur DIY diagnosis?

[elucido]

Only thing I would be worried about is (if this hits a free market and consumers can buy the products for this) that people interested in diagnosing their own conditions would attempt self diagnosis. This may drastically help the NGOs in third world countries who are limited by funds to help treat those without access to even basic healthcare. Who knows, it may even bring down the cost of medical care here in the US. Hey, one can dream right?

As if that would be a bad thing? If someone knows something is wrong with them they can take necessary steps to prevent it from getting worse. Prevention saves money. I just got a blood test today in fact, if I could test my own blood and get the results immediately that would revolutionize everything.

If you want to test yourself for STDs, test your liver, or check yourself for diabetes, you can do that in your living room. That's definitely better than paying money for that.

Ozcan's RAZR

[TempeNerd]

When given the choice between several phone microscopes,
whichever phone makes the simplest microscope is the one to use.

*twitch*

[girlintraining]

Ozcan plans on starting case studies in Africa to see how the microscope can help revolutionize global medicine.

I think it already has, dude.

Re:*twitch*

[copponex]

He's probably referring to that specific microscope at that particular cost.

Kidney dialysis machines that are $100,000: great if you live in the west. Kidney dialysis machines that are $1,000: great if you live anywhere.

Damaging to education

[liak12345]

Children in developing worlds will get the completely wrong picture about cellular biology.

Can it detect semen stains in carpeting?

[elrous0]

Because I'm not buying it unless it does.

Re:Medical Usefulness Overstated?

[Antony T Curtis]

Sickle cell is relatively common in the African Continent. Along with malaria and other parasites (snails?) in areas where there is stagnant water. I think that a portable diagnostic microscope would be of great benefit since there are many conditions rampant in less developed nations that can be diagnosed by looking at the blood, especially if it is possible to transmit the picture to an expert for confirmation.

i'll believe it when I can buy one

[snooo53]

Sounds like an awesome gadget for $10 if that's what it actually ends up costing to manufacture. But it remains to be seen if anyone will actually be able to buy one of these anytime in the near future. Hopefully whomever produces these has more business sense than Negroponte and the OLPC group. By the way, where is my $100 laptop?

Re:Medical Usefulness Overstated?

[alexander_686]

I don't know how much this counts but....

My wife is a veterinarian and they routinely do white cell counts, look for parasites in the stool, etc, I can't imagine that the human world is too far off.

Re:Medical Usefulness Overstated?

[wurp]

Just to point out, sickle cell is common _because_ malaria is common. Having one copy of the recessive gene that causes sickle cell improves immune function against malaria.

So malaria disproportionally killed people who didn't have the sickle cell gene before they bred.

Time for an open source project.

[elucido]

From the summary"

"Ozcan plans on starting case studies in Africa to see how the microscope can help revolutionize global medicine"

Okay, if the goal is really to revolutionize global medicine, where's the parts list, schematic, and software download repository?

Imagine the power of open software, along with the hardware? The software could handle the diagnosis so that it's no longer amateur diagnosis. The software could track blood sugar levels, check all sorts of stuff to completely prevent diseases which are entirely preventable.