A smartphone-based device developed by Harvard Medical School investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital could bring rapid, accurate molecular diagnosis of cancer and other diseases to locations lacking the latest medical technology. The device uses technology for making holograms to collect detailed microscopic images for digital analysis of the molecular composition of cells and tissues.
The D3 (digital diffraction diagnosis) system features an imaging module with a battery-powered LED light clipped onto a standard smartphone. It records high-resolution imaging data with its camera. With a much larger field of view than traditional microscopy, the D3 system is capable of recording data on more than 100,000 cells from a blood or tissue sample in a single image. The data can then be transmitted for analysis to a remote graphic-processing server via a secure, encrypted cloud service. The results can be rapidly returned to the point of care for viewing.
Smartphone-based device could provide rapid, low-cost molecular tumor diagnosis