Phone gadget to diagnose disease

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Researchers have developed an add-on to a mobile phone that can take detailed images and analyse them to diagnose diseases such as tuberculosis, reports BBC.
The CellScope works as a so-called fluorescence microscope that can identify the markers of disease.
It is hoped the device will be useful in the developing world, where such medical diagnostics are rare but mobile ownership and coverage are common.
The research is published in the free-access journal PLoS ONE.
The CellScope is made up of conventional microscope optics as well as some equipment to make it function as a fluorescence microscope.
Fluorescence occurs when certain molecules are illuminated with a certain colour and "shine" for a period in a different colour.
Fluorescent "tagging" molecules can be specially designed to latch on to, for instance, the bacteria that are a sign of tuberculosis (TB). Malaria parasites (D Breslauer) The device can work also as a conventional microscope.
But diagnosing tuberculosis requires a fluorescence microscope, which can illuminate a blood sample that has been treated with "tagging" molecules and detect just the light that those molecules emit with great sensitivity.
However, typical fluorescence microscopes are bulky, expensive devices limited to hospitals and laboratories.