If it’s upto Aydogan Ozcan, who works at the University of California, as an assistant professor of electrical engineering, he would make sure that, medical research tools such as microscopes, would be entirely replaced by mobile phones, capable of performing the same functions. It might sound like a far fetched day dream, bur Asst. Prof. Ozcan has infact modified an existing cell phone into a microscope, with the help of a software that he has designed and developed and has also some hardware required for the modifications.

The entire cost of his experimental projects set him back just $10. Imagine that, a mobile phone microscope capable of conducting all the tests that a regular microscope might do and that too for just $10. Asst. Prof. Ozcan has also set up his own company by the name of , with the sole aim of commercializing his creation and ensure that his dream does indeed gets realized. Explaining the necessity of such devices, Dr. Ozcan stated that, these device could become indefensible diagnosis tools, especially in places that are a great distance away from the nearest hospitals or diagnostic laboratories.

One of the initial prototypes have been configured as such that, the blood specimen is placed over the phone’s camera sensor, that in turn analyzes the contents of the specimen and then sends the information to the nearest health care facility wirelessly. According to Dr. Ozcan,

“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.”

Via New York Times.