Smart phones turn into powerful microscopes in the hands of a Turkish Scientist, Aydogan Ozcan

Imagine that you are on vacation in a remote Anatolian Village. You start having an abdominal pain a few hours after eating a meal. You also remember that you drank your host’s well water.  The closest clinic is six hours away and you want to know if the water you drank was contaminated.  “No problem,” says Aydogan Ozcan.   If you have a smart phone and one of his gadgets that Ozcan and his research team developed at his laboratories on UCLA campus, all you need to do is attach it to the back of your smart phone and now you have a powerful microscope in your hands.  Next you drop couple drops of water onto your phone-converted microscope and within second you know whether the culprit is a bacteria contaminating the well water you drank with your meal.  Ozcan’s gadgets are so powerful that they can be used to count blood cells, to detect viruses such as those causing HIV-AIDS or flu, and even several toxic substances.

Aydogan Ozcan who was featured in an article in the current issue of Smithsonian magazine is a Chancellor’s professor at UCLA’s Electrical and Bioengineering Departments. He is also the associate director of California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI), and founder of Holomic LLC. You can read the Smithsonian magazine article about Dr. Ozcan here.