A personalized food allergen testing platform on a cellphone

Abstract

We demonstrate a personalized food allergen testing platform, termed iTube, running on a cellphone that images and automatically analyses colorimetric assays performed in test tubes toward sensitive and specific detection of allergens in food samples. This cost-effective and compact iTube attachment, weighing approximately 40 grams, is mechanically installed on the existing camera unit of a cellphone where the test and control tubes are inserted from the side and are vertically illuminated by two separate light-emitting-diodes. The illumination light is absorbed by the allergen assay that is activated within the tubes, causing an intensity change in the acquired images by the cellphone camera. These transmission images of the sample and control tubes are digitally processed within1 sec using a smart application running on the same cellphone for detection and quantification of allergen contamination in food products. We evaluated the performance of this cellphone based iTube platform using different types of commercially available cookies, where the existence of peanuts was accurately quantified after a sample preparation and incubation time of ~20 min per test. This automated and cost-effective personalized food allergen testing tool running on cellphones can also permit uploading of test results to secure servers to create personal and/or public spatio-temporal allergen maps, which can be useful for public health in various settings.

Handheld high-throughput plasmonic biosensor using computational on-chip imaging

“…Similarly, various point-of-care diagnostic devices have been developed and among them optical imaging and sensing techniques are highly advantageous as they can provide real-time, highresolution and highly sensitive quantitative information, potentially assisting rapid and accurate diagnosis. [30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40] To date, a number of optical techniques have been proposed for point-of-care diagnostics such as in vitro optical devices, [41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53] including portable optical imaging systems, optical microscopes integrated to cell phones or in vivo optical devices, [54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63] involving confocal microscopy, microendoscopy and optical coherence tomography techniques. Among these approaches, lens-free computational on-chip imaging 64 has been an emerging technique that can eliminate the need for bulky and costly optical components while also preserving (or even enhancing in certain cases) the image resolution, field of view and sensitivity.…”

Mobile Phones Create new Opportunities for Microbiology Research and Clinical Applications

“…In fact, mobile phone-based imaging and sensing platforms have already been used in a variety of applications, including clinical chemistry, biomedical and environmental monitoring [3][4][5], food analysis [6][7][8], detection of different types of chemical and biological analytes such as cells, parasites [9], bacteria [10], eggs [11], proteins [12], various biomarkers [6,7], nanoparticles [13] and even nucleic acids [14][15][16]. In many of these platforms, processing of the acquired data and the resulting computational analysis are done either on the smartphone or over a local or remote server using a customdeveloped smartphone application.…”

“…

KEYWORDSTogether with their cost-effectiveness, wide-spread use, computational power and connectivity, mobile phones have the potential to transform traditional uses of imaging, sensing and diagnostic systems, especially for point-of-care applications and field settings.In fact, mobile phone-based imaging and sensing platforms have already been used in a variety of applications, including clinical chemistry, biomedical and environmental monitoring [3][4][5], food analysis [6][7][8] [12], various biomarkers [6,7], nanoparticles [13] and even nucleic acids [14][15][16]. In many of these platforms, processing of the acquired data and the resulting computational analysis are done either on the smartphone or over a local or remote server using a customdeveloped smartphone application.

…”

Cellphone-based diagnostic devices

“…This fast growth along with evolving technological features and cost reduction has vastly expanded the market size and business opportunities. Because SBDAs will provide a significant, global, real-time impact for on-site analysis and telemedicine opportunities, research developments are increasing in the area of cellphone-based devices for bioanalytical sciences, i.e., immunoassays, LFA, electrochemical sensing, and colorimetric detection ( Figure 19) [70,[111][112][113][114][115][116][117][118][119][120][121][122]. Figure 19.…”