Comments on: Aydogan Ozcan’s cell phone doubles as AIDS detection lab

By: Ed Powers

Ed Powers — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:29:19 +0000

sensitivity? specificity? Any false positives? false negatives? Remarkable technology!!

By: gio

gio — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 20:06:54 +0000

hi i want to tell him good luck, and you should never give up!

By: Hank

Hank — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 12:43:38 +0000

Detecting cell shadows? What a brilliant concept. A lab with such portability and telemetry built into a hand held device is an incredible tool for delivering medical diagnostics to people who donâ€™t otherwise have access to it. Iâ€™m wondering if Ozcan has tried using the blue light sensor to detect sickle cell anemia yet? I would expect the sickle cell to cast a unique shadow.

I can envision this technology evolving to include other detectors. For example, a miniature mass spectrometry sensor could pinpoint diagnose a broad array of diseases and genetic anomalies. Of course, a lot of work would need to be done to get current spectrometers downscaled in size. Ozcanâ€™s work is only a few steps short of creating the hand held medical scanner used in Star Trek. Who would have imagined?

By: Beth Lebwohl

Beth Lebwohl — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:22:36 +0000

Great to hear from you, Liza. I totally thought the same thing!

By: Liza

Liza — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:48:15 +0000

What wonderful work this scientist is doing. I am so glad that EarthSky profiled his work; I haven’t heard of anything like this being done. It’s great to know that there is technology out their that is truly helping people in a vital way, and great that the ubiquitousness of mobile phones can be leveraged. It seems this could have quite an impact on public health and the fight against HIV/AIDS. And it is so important that these health technologies are not just benefiting the privileged but helping those in real need, in places without many of the health provisions we enjoy in industrialized nations.