hiv - Gizmodo

posts about #hiv more →
Modded Cell Phone Analyzes Blood to Detect HIV, Malaria, and More
First Take-Home HIV Test Available in Britain
Molecular Condom: Mighty Morphin' Molecules Keep HIV Away
Take an HIV Test, Get Games

Your version of Internet Explorer is not supported. Please upgrade to the most recent version in order to view comments.

Dsmvwl Admin Promote to frontpage Approve user Ban user ×

BeautifulAgony
12/20/08

In reply to Modded Cell Phone Analyzes Blood to Detect HIV, Malaria, and More
The basic concept only uses a cellphone because of the ability to write an app for the operating system. Once the software can be ported into a device such as a digital camera it would not only be more accurate, but could analyze higher resolution samples for increased capability. Right now there are virtually no digital cameras with OS's that can be written for by the consumer.

Average device cost would be little more than your average 3to 5 megapixel camera, with cost increasing due to software requirements, wireless capability, and advanced detection algorithms.

It will likely be a few years in the wings, with rigorous testing and refinement of the software before it's a comemrcially viable (and medically reliable) tool for common use. The concept is not only brilliant, but could potentially save hundreds of millions of lives.
Reply

BeautifulAgony was starred BeautifulAgony was unstarred

William_III_Earl_of_Dastardshire
12/20/08

@BeautifulAgony: Judging from the fourth pictures of the article, the resolution doesn't seem so critical. The way I understood it, the process works by revealing chemicals in plasma of bloodcells that are telltale for infections, by looking for changes in the absorbtion of certain light frequencies. So probably the ability to reproduce color correctly is much more important.
Reply

BeautifulAgony
12/20/08

@William_III_Earl_of_Dastardshire: True, in which case better (glass) lenses, to reduce chromatic abberation, are probably more important. I'm do think another megapixel or two of resolution would help in making sure that the color information is accurate from the image/light received and not strange low resolution antialiasing, or compression artificating, etc. Lots of phones have a tendency to perform strange actions such as low-light noise reduction, slight blurring and other compensation to accomodate the fact that they use dodgy little cmos sensors and plastic (or low-quality glass) lenses.

I would like to see the results of a bouble-blind test based on multiple negative and positive samples and at two each of least a dozen different camera phones (without extensive modification of the built-in lens, only the added sample viewer/light).

I have a feeling this wouldn't work well across-the-board without some extensive phone-specific coding, since, as mentioned above, the manufacturers use all kinds of tricks to make people think their crappy little phone takes great pictures. (other tricks include boosting saturation of greens and reds, performing noise reduction on low-saturation reds (ie skintones), and performing soft blur on blue tones, and dropping saturation of pictures taken at night and increasing contrast.

These "tricks" aren't bad per se, as they result in decent looking images from relatively low-quality and very tiny hardware... the problem is that they lead to unreliability when you wish to apply them as tools in the medical trade for detecting infectious diseases.

"I wish to extend my apologies, sir, you do not, in fact have AIDS or syphylis.... damn it, I need to buy a better phone, but my carrier has a crappy selection! Anyway, have a great day, and my apologies for quarantining you for so long! Take care now!"
Reply

BeautifulAgony was starred BeautifulAgony was unstarred

Curves
12/20/08

In reply to Modded Cell Phone Analyzes Blood to Detect HIV, Malaria, and More
If it can truly detect HIV and other diseases, this phone will be very popular in pick-up bars.
Reply

Curves was starred Curves was unstarred

Earlier discussions Other discussions Show all discussions Show featured discussions only Start a new discussion