Kristin / Abby may want to know about this.
Significant developing country applications.

Student developed $US240 TB analysing microscope about as effective as
traditional $40,000 instruments for TB smear assessments

    http://bit.ly/TBMicroscope

__________________

They say:

The World Health Organization estimates that 1.3 million people
worldwide died from tuberculosis in 2008. It=92s definitely a disease to
be taken seriously, so when people in remote locations are being
tested for it, it=92s best if they don=92t have to wait for their samples
to be processed at a distant lab. That=92s why medical device designer
Andrew Miller, when he was still an undergraduate at Houston=92s Rice
University, developed the portable, battery-operated Global Focus
fluorescence microscope. In a paper published this Wednesday, Miller
and his co-authors described how the US$240 Global Focus is able to
detect TB-positive sputum smears just as well as laboratory
microscopes worth over $40,000.

Miller built the original 1,000X microscope last year, as his
bioengineering senior design project. His goal was to make a portable
microscope that could be used in developing countries, where there was
limited access to lab equipment and/or electricity. He built it from
off-the-shelf parts, enclosed in a rugged plastic shell created with a
3D printer. Light was provided by a top-mounted LED flashlight. This
year, it won him Rice=92s Hershel M. Rich Invention Award, an annual
engineering award presented to faculty or students for original
inventions. This is the first time it has ever been presented to an
undergraduate project.

Since graduating, Miller has continued work on the Global Focus. He
started by upgrading the plastic shell to aluminum, for better
stability. With help from The Methodist Hospital Research Institute
(TMHRI) he has also run a laboratory trial, in which 63 smears from
suspected TB carriers were analyzed both by his device, and TMHRI's
much more sophisticated fluorescence microscope. In 98.4 percent of
the samples, the two microscopes showed similar findings.

"This is hugely significant as a point-of-care tool clinicians can use
for tuberculosis patients, whether they're in Asia or Africa or even
in West Texas," said Edward Graviss, director of the TMHRI Molecular
Tuberculosis Laboratory. "The first identification of TB is usually
made with a smear, and it will be good to know that in the field
instead of having to wait three or four days to get the smear to a
lab.=94

Rice and Miller have now partnered with 3rd Stone Design, a medical
device consultant, to produce 20 microscopes for use in field trials
next month. To help untrained clinicians make accurate diagnoses, a
new team of Rice students is also developing image processing software
for smart phones.

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