Originally posted by the Voice of America.
Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America,
a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in
the public domain.


                       iPhone Becomes Low-cost Microscope

   by Joe DeCapua

   The Apple iPhone can be used for lot of things - make calls, send
   pictures, video and text and play games. But scientists say it also can
   be converted into a low-cost microscope that can detect worm infections
   in children.
   Microscopes are an important tool when diagnosing disease. But they're
   not always readily available, especially in places like rural Tanzania.
   Now, for a few dollars and a little ingenuity, the iPhone can become a
   medical diagnostic tool. It can probably work on other smart phones,
   too.
   "We got this idea from reading some of the medical literature. And we
   saw that some other groups had published neat images that were taken in
   the laboratory using smart phones and converting them into microscopes.
   But we thought that this was a really neat concept and we wanted to
   take it to real world and practical settings," said Dr. Issac Bogoch,
   an infectious disease specialist at Toronto General Hospital.
   Bogoch is the lead author of a new study on the
   iPhone-turned-microscope. It appears in the American Journal of
   Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
   He said, "I used an iPhone 4s and that's simply because I just happen
   to own one. But any smart phone with a decent camera and a zoom-in
   function should work just fine. Then we bought a ball lens, which is
   about eight dollars. We just got it online. And then we used some
   double-sided tape to stick the ball lens to the lens of the camera on
   the iPhone."
   Bogoch and his colleagues from Massachusetts General Hospital and the
   Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute tested their idea on Pemba
   Island in Tanzania.
   "We were looking at school age children that are unfortunately
   disproportionately affected by intestinal parasitic infections. And
   these infections affect over a billion people on the planet," he said.
   The make-shift microscope could detect parasitic infections to varying
   degrees. The best results came in detecting moderate to heavy
   infections. Results were not as good for mild infections. However,
   Bogoch thinks that will change when the technology improves.
   "We took slides. We were looking for intestinal parasites. So these are
   stool samples. The slide had a little bit of cellophane covering the
   stool sample and we put the slide very close to our ball lens, which
   was stuck up against the iPhone. And we were able to zoom-in and we
   could see the parasites that we were looking for pretty easily."
   Intestinal worms include hookworms and round worms. They can cause
   chronic anemia and malnutrition. Typical diagnosis is done by examining
   a stool sample with a conventional light microscope.
   Bogoch said that the next step is to improve the image quality. He says
   the smartphone microscope could greatly enhance disease control in
   poor, rural areas. He added that treatment for many intestinal
   parasites is generally widely available and very well tolerated.
   If health workers in the field are unsure what the image means, they
   could text it or email it to experts elsewhere and get a diagnosis a
   short time later.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/iphone-microscope-13mar13/1620524.htm
   l

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/iphone-microscope-13mar13/1620524.html