Mobile Microscopes 2013

In some of the least-developed regions of Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, cell phones are the main mode of connecting to the wider world. Even in areas beyond government electrical grids, many people have cell phones, which they charge using solar cells or car batteries.

“You don’t have to put in these copper wires [for phone lines] anymore; you have the [cell] towers. It’s big business,” says bioengineer Daniel Fletcher of the University of California, Berkeley, who has seen cellular technology flourish in countries like Thailand and India. “It’s leaping over the need for infrastructure.”

were able to accurately identify helminth infections about 70 percent of the time. The microscope did exceptionally well spotting the eggs of certain parasites, flagging more than 80 percent of Ascaris lumbricoides infections, for example. For other parasites, however, the microscope was less effective, detecting just over half of whipworm cases and only 14 percent of hookworm infections. “Obviously the results aren’t perfect and there’s definitely room for improvement,” Bogoch says.

But it’s clear to Bogoch and others that such simple, low-cost cell-phone microscopes could revolutionize health care in the areas that need it most. Not only are the microscopes portable and affordable, they won’t need to be operated by a trained physician, says David Walker, president of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Because the microscopes are connected to a cell phone, you can take an image with the phone’s digital camera and simply “send it to someone else who could interpret it.” And it’s not limited to microscopy either; Wachsmann-Hogiu and others are developing cell phone–based spectroscopy and diagnostic test software that can analyze samples on the spot.

Additionally, some argue that the field of mobile microscopes could change the way health care and research works in the developed world. Electrical and bioengineer Aydogan Ozcan of the University of California, Los Angeles, likens the budding technology to the evolution of the personal computer. “If you look at the early computers, they were bulky, they were extremely expensive,” says Ozcan, who is developing lens-free cell-phone microscopes based on computational software. Now, “[computers] are portable . . . and almost anyone can afford them. The same thing is going on today [with microscopy]. We are miniaturizing our micro- and nano-analysis tools. We’re making them more affordable; we’re making them more powerful.