Aydogan Ozcan, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said cell phones using lens-free imaging could be used to monitor the condition of HIV and malaria patients or test water quality in undeveloped areas, the university said Tuesday in a release.

Ozcan has created a prototype cell phone using an imaging platform known as LUCAS -- Lensless Ultra-wide-field Cell monitoring Array -- based on shadow imaging. The technology, which can also be used in a webcam, uses a short wavelength blue light to illuminate a blood, saliva or other fluid sample. The data can then be sent to a hospital for analysis and diagnosis.

"This technology will not only have great impact in health care applications, it also has the potential to replace cytometers in research labs at a fraction of the cost," Ozcan said in a release. "A conventional flow-cytometer identifies cells serially, one at a time, whereas tabletop versions of LUCAS can identify thousands of cells in a second, all in parallel, with the same accuracy."

The findings are published online in the journal Lab on a Chip.

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