Author Interviews, Technology / 18.08.2017
Using a Smartphone As a Portable Laboratory Is Closer Than We Think
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_36535" align="alignleft" width="141"]
Ken Long[/caption]
Ken Long, MD/PhD student
Department of Bioengineering
Micro and Nano Technology Laboratory
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Urbana, Illinois
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Traditional laboratory-based spectrometers are a mainstay of clinical diagnostics. In our recent Lab on a Chip article we sought to produce a handheld device that would be able to perform three broad classes of spectrometric tests that one might normally do in a laboratory (Transmission-based, Reflection-based, and Intensity-based) on a smartphone-based handheld device that could be used at the point-of-care.
Using high-resolution 3D printing, a custom optical fiber, and some off-the-shelf lenses, we were able to design, assemble, and demonstrate a device capable of reproducing results of traditional benchtop equipment when measuring results from commercially-available tests. The device is small enough to hold in the palm of your hand, cost less than $550 to build the prototype, and has the ability to read multiple tests using the video-capture capabilities of the smartphone and a swiping motion with liquid test cartridges, much like swiping a credit card through a reader. The two tests demonstrated in the paper were for a biomarker associated with pre-term birth in pregnant women, and a PKU test for newborns that can defect a critical nutritional enzyme deficiency.
Ken Long[/caption]
Ken Long, MD/PhD student
Department of Bioengineering
Micro and Nano Technology Laboratory
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Urbana, Illinois
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Traditional laboratory-based spectrometers are a mainstay of clinical diagnostics. In our recent Lab on a Chip article we sought to produce a handheld device that would be able to perform three broad classes of spectrometric tests that one might normally do in a laboratory (Transmission-based, Reflection-based, and Intensity-based) on a smartphone-based handheld device that could be used at the point-of-care.
Using high-resolution 3D printing, a custom optical fiber, and some off-the-shelf lenses, we were able to design, assemble, and demonstrate a device capable of reproducing results of traditional benchtop equipment when measuring results from commercially-available tests. The device is small enough to hold in the palm of your hand, cost less than $550 to build the prototype, and has the ability to read multiple tests using the video-capture capabilities of the smartphone and a swiping motion with liquid test cartridges, much like swiping a credit card through a reader. The two tests demonstrated in the paper were for a biomarker associated with pre-term birth in pregnant women, and a PKU test for newborns that can defect a critical nutritional enzyme deficiency.
Prof. Chandola[/caption]
Professor Tarani Chandola
Cathie Marsh Institute and Social Statistics
www.cmist.manchester.ac.uk
University of Manchester
Co-director of the National Centre for Research Methods International Centre for Lifecourse Studies in Society & Health
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The study examined the common perception that “any job is better than no job” to see whether this was true in terms of chronic stress levels. It followed up a group of unemployed adults representative of adults living in the UK, and compared their health and stress levels in terms of those who remained unemployed and those who became re-employed in poor and good quality work.
Dr. Staud[/caption]
Roland Staud, M.D.
Professor of Medicine
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Fatigue after exertion or sleep loss is normal. However, fatigue at rest is not. Resting fatigue is reported by cancer, heart disease, RA, SLE patients and patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). CFS has been mostly associated with chronic infections but findings are inconsistent. We hypothesized that chronic fatigue is signaled by sensitized tissue receptors to the CNS where minute amounts of muscle metabolites can activate these receptors (metabo-receptors). Why the receptors are sensitized is unclear. To test our hypothesis we injected CFS patients with lidocaine or normal saline into muscles once. We saw a statistical improvement of overall fatigue (27%) with lidocaine compared to saline.
Conclusion: Chronic fatigue syndrome patients are using metabo-receptors for inappropriately signaling fatigue to the CNS.
Dr. Parast[/caption]
Layla Parast PhD
Statistician
RAND
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: This study examined the association between pet ownership, specifically dog or cat ownership, and children’s physical and mental health. There has been a lot of previous work looking at this association and these previous results seemed to show that kids with pets have better health than those without pets. The hypothesis has been that pets can improve children’s health by increasing physical activating and improving young people’s empathy skills.
We used data from over 5,000 households in California which was obtained from the California Health Interview Survey and looked at physical and mental health outcomes among children in households with pets vs. without pets.
We found that children in households with pets do have better health than those without pets, but that after we account for factors such as family income and housing type, for example, there is no evidence of an association between pet ownership and health. That is, households that have pets are more likely to be higher income, to be in a house as opposed to an apartment, and to have healthier adults in the household, for example - and these factors are also associated with better child health.