Analytical Microsystems for Biomedical and Environmental Applications

Fluorescence Nano Particle Detection in a Liquid Sample Using the Smartphone for Biomedical Application

In this paper, we present a Smartphone-based Fluorescence Nanoparticle Detector (SPF-NPD) that can be used for identifying biological agents in biomedical applications. The experimental setup consists of an LED light source and an Eppendorf tube holder placed inside a dark chamber with an optimally located slit for aligning the camera of a smartphone. The camera acquires the fluorescence intensity variations in the target liquid sample placed in the Eppendorf tube and passes it to a dedicated android application running in the smartphone. Using the principle of fluorescence-based pathogen detection, the android application detects the pathogens and displays the results within a few seconds. Since, all smartphones are equipped with high-resolution cameras, the proposed SPF-NPD provides a simple and elegant solution for instantaneous detection of fluorescence nano particles and has a great potential for healthcare applications for live detection of pathogens. The intensity measurement in SPF-NPD algorithm uses 5-pixel method, that is, the center pixel followed by four immediate neighbor pixels, because of which, minimal sample quantity is sufficient for precise measurements. We establish the robustness of SPF-NPD through exhaustive experiments with various smartphone cameras having different resolutions ranging from 8 to 20 Megapixels. The results of the proposed SPF-NPD method are validated against those obtained from standard devices such as Perkin-Elmer Picoflor and Perkin-Elmer Enspire. The advantages of the proposed method are highlighted.