Tag: innovation
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From the New York Times article:
 "Microscopes are invaluable tools to identify blood and other cells when screening for diseases like anemia, tuberculosis and malaria. But they are also bulky and expensive.
Now an engineer, using software that he developed and about $10 worth of off-the-shelf hardware, has adapted cellphones to substitute for microscopes.
... In one prototype, a slide holding a finger prick of blood can be
inserted over the phone’s camera sensor. The sensor detects the slide’s
contents and sends the information wirelessly to a hospital or regional
health center. For instance, the phones can detect the asymmetric shape
of diseased blood cells or other abnormal cells, or note an increase of
white blood cells, a sign of infection..."
An amazing development for field work, and for care in less developed areas. This tool is even more useful because of the cellular phone it is built on. A doctor in the field can use the phone to send their microscopic imagery back to a lab, and then use it to receive results from a lab, without ever having to bring physical samples to a lab, or return to pick up results.
This technology uses light interference to create a 3-D hologram of the cells on a slide rather than passing light through it, so it reveals different features than a normal microscope. It seems from the article that the interior details of a cell are not visible with this type of microscope. The invention could still become an invaluable tool for early screening of parasitic diseases, spikes or decreases in blood cell count, and other diseases that affect the shape or quantity of cell structures.
Have any of our readers had any experience with this type of holographic blood scan? How about any training opportunities to study similar techniques?
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TED talks are an annual conference for sharing revolutionary ideas and inventions with the scientific community at large. This year saw the addition of TEDMED, dedicated to innovations in the medical field, and Wired.com provided a great overview.
This year's talks were heavily centered around gadgets, digitization and how they might impact the future of medicine. Wireless monitoring technologies were shown off, a project to collect over 100,000 human genomes is off to a solid start, and living cultures of artificially grown tissue were passed around to attendees.
All in all, a great article on some phenomenal innovations. Read more for an excerpt from the article, or Click here to view it on Wired.com.
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“A new chip, developed at 
Evidence for Green Tea as a cancer prevention method continues to grow, though scientists are not yet ready to officially endorse it for that purpose. The results of a study published in Cancer Prevention Research suggests a reduction in oral cancer.