Cell Phone Microscope

UCLA engineer Aydogan Ozcan is a pioneer with cell phone apps. Not games or widgets, but sophisticated biophotonics systems that allow doctors in the most remote regions of the world to analyze blood cells for malaria, test water for parasites and otherwise convert a communications device into a mobile lab. As part of his research, he also is helping develop sophisticated, yet bargain basement cheap, optics that allow a cell phone camera to serve as a lens-less microscope or a 3d-scanner. A winner of a 2010 Popular Mechanics

Credit: © Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation aftr Hongiyng Zhu et al. (Royal Society of Chemistry, 2010)