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David N. Breslauer
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CellScope
Optical imaging of blood samples remains the primary technique for diagnosis and screening of many diseases, ranging from leukemia to malaria to sickle cell disease, as well as numerous bacterial infections. In many developing nations, reliable and timely disease diagnosis is difficult due to a simple lack of resources. Despite the simplicity of examining a sample with light microscopy, such tests are at present neither routine nor reliable in many developing countries due to lack of access to clinical light microscopes. To address this need, we are developing an optical microscopy system for use in developing countries based on converting camera-enabled cell phones into portable light microscopes. Taking advantage of the abundant cell phone infrastructure in the developing world, our telemicroscopy system will enable health care workers to take images of patients’ samples and wirelessly transmit those images to a facility where trained personnel can evaluate the samples and quickly respond with a diagnosis. Using our system, we have currently:
- Built both low magnification and high magnification CellScope's for examining tissue and blood samples, respectively.
- Achieved Sufficiently high resolution and contrast to identify malaria in infected blood samples.
- Built a portable, low power, LED-based illumination system.
- We have currently adapted the system for fluorescence microscopy of stained tuberculosis-infected blood samples.
We thank CITRIS, Blum Center for Developing Economies, Microsoft Research, Intel, and the Vodafone Americas Foundation for funding.
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Prototype high magnification CellScope.
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Image of malaria infected blood sample taken with CellScope.
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