Field portable mobile phone based fluorescence microscopy for detection of giardia lamblia cysts in water samples

Hatice Ceylan Koydemir, Zoltan Gorocs, Euan McLeod, Derek Tseng, Aydogan Ozcan

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

Giardia lamblia is a waterborne parasite that causes an intestinal infection, known as giardiasis, and it is found not only in countries with inadequate sanitation and unsafe water but also streams and lakes of developed countries. Simple, sensitive, and rapid detection of this pathogen is important for monitoring of drinking water. Here we present a costeffective and field portable mobile-phone based fluorescence microscopy platform designed for automated detection of Giardia lamblia cysts in large volume water samples (i.e., 10 ml) to be used in low-resource field settings. This fluorescence microscope is integrated with a disposable water-sampling cassette, which is based on a flow-through porous polycarbonate membrane and provides a wide surface area for fluorescence imaging and enumeration of the captured Giardia cysts on the membrane. Water sample of interest, containing fluorescently labeled Giardia cysts, is introduced into the absorbent pads that are in contact with the membrane in the cassette by capillary action, which eliminates the need for electrically driven flow for sample processing. Our fluorescence microscope weighs ~170 grams in total and has all the components of a regular microscope, capable of detecting individual fluorescently labeled cysts under light-emitting-diode (LED) based excitation. Including all the sample preparation, labeling and imaging steps, the entire measurement takes less than one hour for a sample volume of 10 ml. This mobile phone based compact and costeffective fluorescent imaging platform together with its machine learning based cyst counting interface is easy to use and can even work in resource limited and field settings for spatio-temporal monitoring of water quality.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationOptics and Biophotonics in Low-Resource Settings
EditorsDavid Levitz, Aydogan Ozcan, David Erickson
PublisherSPIE
ISBN (Electronic)9781628414042
DOIs
StatePublished - 2015
Externally publishedYes
EventOptics and Biophotonics in Low-Resource Settings - San Francisco, United States
Duration: Feb 7 2015Feb 8 2015

Publication series

NameProgress in Biomedical Optics and Imaging - Proceedings of SPIE
Volume9314
ISSN (Print)1605-7422

Conference

ConferenceOptics and Biophotonics in Low-Resource Settings
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CitySan Francisco
Period2/7/152/8/15

Keywords

  • Mobile microscopy
  • Waterborne pathogen

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
  • Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
  • Radiology Nuclear Medicine and imaging
  • Biomaterials

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