Researchers at University of California, Los Angeles developed a smartphone attachment capable of identifying whether a sample of a given bacteria is resistant to a particular antibiotic. The technology may have great potential for use in areas susceptible to the spread of infectious diseases when expensive laboratory equipment is not available.
There are 96 chambers within the device, each containing a bacterial sample mixed with a dose of an antibiotic and given time to react to the medicine. An array of LEDs illuminates the samples while the phone’s camera captures images of how light passes through the sample chambers using a special app. These images are then transferred to a remote computer server that analyzes them and sends the final results back to the app. Once the bacterial samples are placed into the device, the actual testing takes only a few minutes.
