The technology inside your digital camera may lead to a Star Trek-style medical tricorder and possibly even replace the traditional microscope. Researchers at theCalifornia Institute of Technology have developed a method of using digital imaging chips found in cameras to create hi-res images of small specimens and cells.
For about the last 300 years microscopes have worked under the same principle, you put something under a light source and then stare at it through a powerful magnifying glass. With the new "optofluidic microscope" however, all you need is a $10 chip, some metal film and a specimen suspended in liquid and you can create a hi-resolution image of whatever you're studying.
Here's how optofluidic microscopes works: the imaging chip is covered by metal film which has strategically placed holes in it and the chip is illuminated. When a specimen passes over these holes the chip records the dark areas and creates an image based on the variations in light. The new-style microscope can reportedly scan cells as small as 0.8 or 0.9 microns, which is important since the average cancer cell measures 15 to 30 microns.
Changhuei Yang, who lead the Caltech project, says thanks to the low price and small size of the optofluidic microscope he believes third-world countries will someday benefit from this technology. The dream is that optofluidic microscopes will soon be used in the technology can someday in iPod-size scanners designed to detect traces of cancer or malaria in blood and giardia in water.
