Telemicroscopy for Disease Diagnosis

Optical microscopy is a powerful method for diagnosing many diseases, but interpretation of microscopic images often requires advanced medical expertise. One possibility for improving health care in remote or underdeveloped areas is to provide low-cost devices that (with minimal user training) can acquire the images necessary for screening, diagnosis, or monitoring treatment. These devices could take advantage of existing wireless telecommunications infrastructure to transmit the images to a central health care facility for the actual diagnosis step. Such a system could extend the reach of struggling health care systems and help to track endemic diseases. This project aims to design a microscope that can be used with a standard camera phone to acquire and transmit images for diagnosis. Target diseases include malaria and sickle cell anemia.

RECENT NEWS!!!
Congratulations to the group for coming in first place in the CITRIS White Paper Competition. We have added an additional $8,500 of research funds. Check the link under "News" for more information about the award. Also you can download and read more about our project proposal.

Project mission:

To develop a working prototype of a microscopy device that will perform rapid optical screening for diseases by collecting and transmitting images via a camera cell phone.

Potential impact:

These devices could take advantage of existing wireless telecommunications infrastructure to transmit the images to a central health care facility for diagnosis of diseases in rural and remote areas. Such a system could extend the reach of struggling health care systems and help to track endemic diseases.

Required resources:

1. Total project needs: $28,500
2. In-kind contribution needs: functional high quality camera cell phones (preferibly cell phone cameras with 2.0 Megapixel or higher)

News:

• http://www.citris-uc.org/event/citris_white_paper_competition_awards

Our sponsors:

CITRIS
Big Ideas @ Berkeley
UC Berkeley College of Engineering