Lifelens App Tests for Malaria in Minutes and Helps Save Lives

Lifelens introduces an innovative point-of-care smartphone application to address child mortality rates caused by the lack of detection and availability of treatment for malaria. Basically, a  Smartphone app which will allow people to test for the deadly disease in a matter of minutes. The group, calling themselves LifeLens, says in a video and article available on their blog that “Lifelens hopes to directly address the major problem of reducing child mortality rates throughout the world by providing a robust mobile diagnostic solution for malaria patients. The premise of Lifelens project is to digitally characterize anemia, visualize blood cell rupture and parasites, and provide three-dimensional modeling of cells through single image acquisition of low-volume blood smears by peripheral finger pricks.”

The Technology?

Lifelens devices are equipped with proprietary image analysis algorithm written in .NET with Visual Studio. The software is built in Visual Studio for a Windows Phone 7 using Microsoft Silverlight. Diagnosis is conducted using proprietary computer vision algorithms, written in C#, which can detect the presence of a malarial parasite within a patient’s blood cells. There are future plans to include Windows Azure into the system for data aggregation and reporting.

Lifelens replaces the unreliable cotton swab with a high definition, high magnification camera, equipped with proprietary image analysis algorithm written in .NET with Visual Studio. The software is designed to be used on the Windows Phone 7 OS.

The Lifelens diagnostic process consists of five steps (which can be performed by a volunteer in the field with only basic training):

1. Draw blood

2. Place on slide to create smear

3. Image with Lifelens

4. Receive diagnosis and SMS export to server

5. Disinfect slide