Very Smart Smartphone

A new smartphone has the ability to scan blood for parasites.

15:51 08 May 2015

A research team at the University of California, Berkeley, and the US National Institute of Health is using a modified smartphone to automate the process of detecting wriggling parasites in blood samples. 

 

One of the researchers, Prof Daniel Fletcher, said: "With one touch of the screen, the device moves the sample, captures video and automatically analyses the images.”

 

Instead of identifying the worm, the smartphone’s software looks and analyses the movement. This helps healthcare workers to identify patients who are suitable for a drug treatment. 

 

Prof Fletcher told the BBC News website: "I'm excited, it offers a new higher-tech approach to dealing with very low-tech problems."

 

"There are drugs to treat many neglected tropical diseases, these are problems that should be solved, but there is not the technology to identify people who who need the right drugs."

 

Prof Simon Brooker from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, commented: "I think it's one of the most fundamental advances in neglected tropical diseases in a long time."

 

"In the 21st Century we are using 20th Century technology to diagnose these infections, this brings us into the modern world.

 

"It really is exciting; when you see it you just go 'wow'; hopefully it will transform efforts to eliminate diseases," he added.