Lucky and I were both coming from meetings and my car still needed gas.  It was going to be a push to make it to the airport in time and, low and behold, we missed our flight (my first time!).  My cousin Seema was gracious enough to house us at the last minute (thanks again ;)) and Lucky and I ended up putting the slides together for our morning talk in a rush before crashing for a few hours. 

We caught a 6:30am flight and touched down in in LA somewhere around 8:30.  The Flyaway shuttle to UCLA was super cheap and also had wireless on board- this let us get off some quick tweets about our status before our upcoming day of meetings.  Around 10:30 we found Professor Aydogan Ozcan in his office.  His research lab has found some remarkable applications for everyday cell phones.  By popping the camera phone lens off, placing a blood sample on the CCD chip sensor below, and illuminating from above with an LED light, you can generate a holographic image of the cells in the sample.  These are basically shadows cast by diffracted light, and most cell-types have a distinctive fingerprint (so a red blood cell looks different from a lymphocyte which looks different from bacteria).  Characteristic images of each cell type can be saved in a library and then used to count the number of that cell type present in an unknown sample.  This means that simple laboratory tests such as red or white blood cell counts, hematocrit, and detection of bacteria in the blood can be performed much more rapidly than conventional blood tests.  Obviously, we are very excited about these applications and are interested in exploring the ways in which these innovations could be applied to cell phone-based healthcare in the developing world.  Here’s a short video on Prof. Ozcan’s work: LUCAS.

Our talk to the UCLA engineering department went well; we basically outlined the proposed operational model of FrontlineSMS:Medic and went over the outcomes of Mobiles in Malawi.  We threw some amazing statistics about cell phone usage out there to chew on as well (for example, 3.6 billion people worldwide now have a cell phone, a whopping 54% of the global population).  Then we shifted gears and talked about a few innovations such as the OpenMRS merger, forms client functionality, and potential diagnostic applications such as Prof. Ozcan’s LUCAS.  Unfortunately we forgot to give out the sack of FrontlineSMS pins that we brought along for the ride.

Later in the day we met up with Martina Fuchs, the CEO of Real Medicine Foundation, to talk about her start-up clinics throughout Africa, South America, and South Asia.  Most of these Real Medicine establishments operate using community health workers and serve large catchment areas- ideal circumstances for benefiting from FrontlineSMS:Medic.  We are all very excited to be talking with Martina about our organization.

I’m ashamed to say that we almost missed our flight back as well.  I suppose that a series of engaging meetings can make you lose track of the time.  Regardless, we made it back safely (and in amazing style because we flew Virgin American) and returned back to campus just in time to bust out our immuno problem set by midnight.  Alas, we mustn’t forget that we’re still students

Share/Save

Tags: Aydogan Ozcan, FrontlineSMS:Medic, LUCAS, Martina Fuchs, Real Medicine Foundation

This entry was posted on Friday, February 27th, 2009 at 4:04 am and is filed under FrontlineSMS:Medic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.