TB diagnosis via mobile phone

Increasingly advanced technologies that will further facilitate the world's health. Now there CellScope fluoresense who worked as a microscope that can identify the signs of a disease such as tuberculosis. Researchers have developed an adjunct to a mobile phone that can generate and analyze images for diagnosis of diseases such as tuberculosis.

It is expected that this discovery will be useful in the development of global health, where health diagnosis is still very rare but cell phone users are common. CellScope made with a conventional optical microscope with the same equipment with functions fluoresence microscope.

Fluoresense occurs when a molecule was illuminated by a particular color and shine for a certain period with a different color.

Diagnosing tuberculosis requires fluoresense microscope, which can illuminate a blood sample with a molecular tag, and only detect molecules with a certain radiance with high sensitivity.

"There are people who have worked on developing portable fluoresense microscope," says David Breslauer, Chairman of the researchers from the University of California Berkeley, as reported by BBC News, Monday (27/07/2009).

Researchers use a standard Nokia handset with 3.2 megapixel camera, develop additional 'snap on', including the optical microscope and place the blood sample with glass slides.

This device has more than one millimeter resolution and can detect tuberculosis bacteria in the sample. Several other molecules have been ditag for the development of other disease diagnosis.

Breslauer said that this device is more than just a camera, because the merger of the mobile phone can provide access to computer power as well as to other aspects of mobile communications.

"So if you have a portable, battery-operated to this system to take pictures, analyze, and move it, so that makes a portable medical clinic. The doctor can see a sample without having to attend," said Breslauer.