Damerican engineers have developed an inexpensive smartphone accessory that can quickly screen for AIDS and syphilis. A device reproduces for the first time all the mechanical, optical and electronic functions of a laboratory analysis system, its designers said Wednesday in the American medical journal Science Translational Medicine. All electrical power is supplied by a smartphone. This accessory, which can also be connected to a computer, was recently tested by health personnel in Rwanda. They analyzed a drop of blood taken from the fingers of 96 women recruited as part of a program to prevent the transmission of AIDS from mother to child.
Our work shows that a full laboratory analysis can be performed by a smartphone accessory, says Samuel Sia, professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia University in New York, and lead author of this invention.
The technique to use to make a diagnosis from a drop of blood is simple to implement as shown in this video by Tassaneewan Laksanasopin and Tiffany Guo. © Sia Lab, Columbia Engineering, YouTube
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