Ben-Gurion University of the Negev researcher Alberto Bilenca, Ph.D., has been awarded a prestigious grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a fast, low-cost device to accuracy diagnose malaria without the need for blood collection in field settings. Bilenca’s project is based on a standard camera cellphone and a red laser pointer that can noninvasively obtain finger blood perfusion images with excellent resolution and contrast in less of a second. It uses the principles of optical polarization/speckle and cellphone technology built into a portable probe that creates images that detect malaria pigment (hemozoin crystals) in blood as well as micro-obstructions in the circulatory system that result from the infection.
