LOS ANGELES — A new MacGyver-esque cellphone hack could bring cheap, on-the-spot disease detection to even the most remote villages on the planet. Using only an LED, plastic light filter and some wires, scientists at UCLA’s California NanoSystems Institute have modded a cellphone into a portable blood tester capable of monitoring HIV, malaria, leukemia and detecting diseases.Blood tests today require either refrigerator-sized machines that cost tens of thousands of dollars or a trained technician who manually identifies and counts cells under a microscope. These systems are slow, expensive and require dedicated labs to function. And soon they could be a thing of the past. UCLA researcher http://innovate.ee.ucla.edu/ Dr. Aydogan Ozcan images thousands of blood cells instantly by placing them on an off-the-shelf camera sensor and lighting them with a filtered-light source (coherent light, for you science buffs). The filtered light exposes distinctive qualities of the cells, which are then interpreted by Ozcan’s custom software. By analyzing the cell types present in a much larger sample, a more accurate diagnosis can be made in a matter of minutes. No more sending blood away to a lab and waiting days or weeks for the results. Click through the gallery for Wired.com’s exclusive first look at Ozcan’s hacked cellphone devices. Left: This off-the-shelf Sony Ericsson cellphone has been modded into a LUCAS imager. LUCAS is a selective acronym for Lensfree Ultrawide-field Cell-monitoring Array platform based on Shadow imaging.The bulge on the back is the filtered light source that illuminates the sample. This low-cost hack could revolutionize disease detection in the field.Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.com
The case of this still-functional cellphone has been sliced, and a hinge has been added. Just open the back of the phone, insert the blood-sample slide over the CCD sensor, and take a picture. The filtered-light source (blue) on this working prototype is the key to analyzing the cell types accurately. It reveals distinguishing characteristics about each cell, providing data for Ozcan to process. Ozcan is currently seeking a manufacturer for his devices. Once mass-produced, portable LUCAS imagers could change health care around the world, especially in parts of the planet that don’t have access to medical laboratories.Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.com
This prototype consists of an off-the-shelf webcam. The cam has been dissected and placed into a new case. Because it is just a peripheral, it requires connection to a computer to capture images.Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.com
Here, Ozcan’s custom software runs on a desktop computer and analyzes a blood sample. The software will eventually run on the device that holds the image sensor, making it a stand-alone blood-testing device.Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.com
This large CCD sensor board is used to develop an industrial version of the cellphone LUCAS device. This version would be a nonportable, high-throughput machine that would reside in medical labs. Thanks to its much larger sensor size, this LUCAS device is able to scan many more cells at a time. The final machine may eventually replace much larger and more expensive medical laboratory devices.Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.com
This diagram shows the converted cellphone and an image it made (inset). Despite the small sensor size, it can scan a relatively large amount of cells.Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.com
The large sensor prototype is illuminated with a yellow light source. Different-colored light sources can be used to generate more information about the cells they are imaging. This works because different wavelengths of light create different patterns around different cell types.Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.com
A red light source illuminates a large-sensor-prototype board. The light source can be tuned to a variety of wavelengths from infrared to ultraviolet. Using a tunable light source is practical in a lab setting, but field-portable devices would likely have one or more fixed-wavelength light sources.Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.com
