Cradle turns smartphone into handheld biosensor
University of Illinois researchers developed a cradle and app for the iPhone to make a handheld biosensor that uses the phone’s own camera and processing power to detect any kind of biological molecules or cells.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Researchers and physicians in the field could soon run on-the-spot tests for environmental toxins, medical diagnostics, food safety and more with their smartphones.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign researchers have
developed a cradle and app for the iPhone that uses the phone’s built-in
camera and processing power as a biosensor to detect toxins, proteins,
bacteria, viruses and other molecules.
Having such sensitive biosensing capabilities in the field
could enable on-the-spot tracking of groundwater contamination, combine
the phone’s GPS data with biosensing data to map the spread of
pathogens, or provide immediate and inexpensive medical diagnostic
tests in field clinics or contaminant checks in the food processing and
distribution chain.
“We’re interested in biodetection that needs to be performed outside of the laboratory,” said team leader Brian Cunningham, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and of bioengineering
at the U. of I. “Smartphones are making a big impact on our society –
the way we get our information, the way we communicate. And they have
really powerful computing capability and imaging. A lot of medical
conditions might be monitored very inexpensively and non-invasively
using mobile platforms like phones. They can detect molecular things,
like pathogens, disease biomarkers or DNA, things that are currently
only done in big diagnostic labs with lots of expense and large volumes
of blood.”
Read more and watch video at news.illinois.edu.
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