Plenary speaker, Dr. Jonathan Cooper of University of Glasgow gave a fascinating talk Monday at SPIE Photonics West entitled "Developing Diagnostics for the Developing World".
In developed countries, most people will die over the age of 70 of a chronic illness. However in the developing world, most people die of an infectious disease such as, malaria, tuberculosis, or pneumonia and 40% die before the age of 14.
Ingeniously, Dr. Cooper and colleagues have developed a chip to detect such diseases with acoustic waves and a single droplet of blood. Through a surface acoustic wave (SAW) device, the blood droplet will centrifuge and the red blood cells will lyse. The acoustic wave can then be focused and heat the droplet to amplify the cellular DNA through on-chip polymerase chain reaction (PCR). All of which can be powered by the charge of a cellphone. Once the DNA has been amplified, parasite or bacterial DNA can then be detected via simple gel electrophoresis. Brilliant.