A Device That Could Change Healthcare
By Tamara Straus
There are three innovations without which,
CellScope—a breakthrough microscopy
project of Dan Fletcher’s bioengineering lab
at UC Berkeley—would not be possible. They
are also part of landscape of innovations that
may revolutionize global healthcare.
The first is the 3D printer. Before these
printers were mainstreamed, students in
Professor Fletcher’s lab assembled prototype
mobile microscopes from sheets of plastic
that had to be cut and glued by hand. New
engineering designs usually took weeks and
were difficult to modify quickly. With the lab’s
Stratasys 3D printer, polished prototypes are
now being created in as little as a day.
phone could be modified to capture images
of human cells similar to those captured
on his lab’s $150,000 research microscope.
Continuing the project the summer after
the class ended, Fletcher and a group of
students attached a standard set of lenses
to his sister’s Nokia phone and were able to
image blood cells, malaria parasites, and the
bacteria that causes