Doctor on call: Economist

Mobile-phone microscopes
May 15th 2008 | BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA
From The Economist print edition

Simple accessories could turn mobile phones into useful medical devices

ROBI MAAMARI stares intently at the screen of his mobile phone. The student is not squinting to tap out yet another daft text message, but looking carefully for the faint blue dots that are the tell-tale diagnostic signature of malaria.

Mr Maamari is a member of a research team led by Dan Fletcher, a professor of bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley, which has developed a cheap attachment to turn the digital camera on many of today's mobile phones into a microscope. Called a CellScope, it can show individual white and red blood cells, which means that with the correct stain it can be used to identify the parasite that causes malaria. Moreover, by transmitting an image directly over the mobile network, the CellScope could greatly help with the remote diagnosis and monitoring of many illnesses.

The project, which began as a challenge by Dr Fletcher to his undergraduate students to turn their mobile phones into microscopes, gained momentum when they came up with some practical designs. Although the first prototype covered a tabletop, the latest uses commercially available lenses fitted inside a tube that snaps directly onto the phone. One end has a clip for holding a sample slide, and different levels of magnification are possible. The team thinks the attachments, if mass-produced, could be made smaller and tougher, and sell for less than $100.

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