Scan Your Food For Bacteria With Your Cell Phone

By Rebecca Boyle Posted 02.23.2012 at 3:37 pm 7 Comments

E. Coli Scanner The device attaches to a cell phone camera. UCLA

Have you ever been tempted to order steak tartare but decided against it for fear of getting sick? This little cell phone scanner can take a look at it for you and let you know if it does in fact harbor any E. coli bacteria.

It attaches to a typical cell phone camera and uses fluorescence imaging to detect the bacteria. Engineers at UCLA combined quantum dots, a type of tiny semiconductor, with capillaries containing antibodies. When the capillaries contain an E. coli sample, they emit light.

The cell phone attachment thereby works like a fluorescent microscope, illuminating the presence of the nasty bacteria. It's another example of how cell phones can serve as a platform for a multitude of other sensors — CellScope, a previous PopSci Best of What's New winner, takes microscope images and can send them to distant labs for analysis.

It's not clear whether this UCLA scanner will ever reach the market, but it shows the potential of a portable, cheap detector for one of the worst food and water contaminants out there.

Previous Article: Today in Great Reads: "The Case of the Missing Moon Rocks" at The Atavist

Next Article: Kickstarter Is On Track to Out-Fund the National Endowment for the Arts

7 Comments

Link to this comment

-my name here-

02/23/12 at 3:48 pm

ladies and gentlemen, the tricorder.
(certain sensors sold separately, some assembly required.)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
why learn from your own mistakes, when you could learn from the mistakes of others?
“The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible” -Albert Ein

Link to this comment

ghost

02/23/12 at 4:22 pm

that looks like it could easily be made by rep rap or some other kind of 3d printer type thing

to mars or bust!

Link to this comment

Robot

02/23/12 at 4:29 pm

They should freely give these to prostitutes to help reduce STDs....

.............................
Science sees no further than what it can sense.
Religion sees beyond the senses.

Link to this comment

kelli62499

02/23/12 at 5:30 pm

I can picture the commercial now: Are you OCD about your food's cleanliness? There's an app for that.

Link to this comment

joshrosanberg

02/24/12 at 4:29 pm

This is incredible technology. Here's the good stuff though: uncoverthebest.com

Link to this comment

Peter10

03/13/12 at 6:30 pm

I bet it will detect "any E. coli bacteria". It's the bad ones we're after for instance O157H7. In fact we need E. coli in our intestines as they make, amongst other things, vitamin K which is a very important bloodclotting factor.

Link to this comment

joywager

04/02/12 at 2:35 am

Scientists from the University of California LA have come up with a device that can put a cellular phone to use fighting food-borne illness. The device, which is only a prototype, uses LED and ultraviolet lights to identify E. coli bacteria. Source for this article: UCLA scientists create E coli detector attachment for cell phones. Perhaps, this is one of the best invention for health device.