A UCLA student has cooked up a reliable microscope attachment for mobile phones that can help medical professionals around the world while staying affordable. We had actually checked in with LUCAS’ creator, Aydogan Ozcan, a little over a year ago when it was still in the early stages, but now it’s almost ready for trials in Africa. The microscope can scan blood, water, and saliva, and check for microparticles, red and white blood cells, patelets, and parsites. By using the shadow cast by an LED rather than include an expensive lens, the unit costs $10 in parts, making it highly accessible to even the poorest countries. The mobile component of the project comes in especially helpful by digitizing and sending result data elsewhere for analysis, cutting down on false positive diagnoses. Here’s a sample of what the scans look like.
It’s a pretty ambitious project, and has already earned awards from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, National Geographic, and National Science Foundation. You can take a look at the paper presenting the research project here, or check out some YouTube videos exploring the technology here and here. The research department working on LUCAS can be found here, and the company being borne from it, Microskia, will be set up here shortly.
[via UCLA]