SCOPE APP: Developed in the University of California, Berkeley, lab of Daniel Fletcher, the CellScope, here trained on an algae sample, turns the camera of a standard cell phone into a diagnostic-quality microscope with a magnification of 5x–60x.CINDY MANLY-FIELDS/BIOENGINEERING DEPARTMENT, UC BERKELEYIn 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.”
It’s also big opportunity. Fletcher and others are developing technologies that take advantage of the 6 billion or so cell phones in use around the world to help improve health care in the most remote locations. In 2009, Fletcher and his colleagues added a set of lenses to a smart phone and used the device to image cells with both bright-field and fluorescence techniques. The resolution was high enough to diagnose malaria from blood samples ...
