A modular, high-magnification microscope attachment for cell phones have been developed at the University of California, Berkeley. This wonderful device will enable health workers in remote, rural areas to take high-resolution images of a patient's blood cells using a cell-phone camera, and then transmit the photos to experts at medical centers.
This wonderful innovation in the mobile industry will help patients with blood disorders who live far from medical specialists get more accurately diagnosed and treated. "I wanted to make optical design relevant to today," says Daniel Fletcher, a professor of bioengineering at Berkeley. Fletcher's Students found it relatively easy to integrate a simple arrangement of lenses with the cell-phone camera and transmit magnified images to a laptop using a Bluetooth attachment to the phone. Doctors believe that this camera in late-model phones are capable of capturing all the details that a doctor would need to identify malaria parasites and cancer cells.
The total cost of the first prototype, built from off-the-shelf components, was $75. The current version provides its own sample illumination from cheap, low-power LEDs. The device comes in two versions: with a magnification of about 5 times, for taking images of moles and rashes, and with a magnification of about 60 times, for capturing the details of blood cells and parasites. The higher-magnification model--the larger of the two--is roughly the size and shape of a roll of quarters. Both scopes attach to the phone with a modified belt clip.
This high-magnification microscope attachment for cell phones is cost effective and durable.
