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80WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG SEPTEMBER 28, 2009
T he visionary gadgets that electrical engineer Babak A. Parviz has in his sights are defi nitely not Ye Olde Con-
tact Lenses. He imagines slivers of plastic that clarify vision while also projecting weather maps, driving directions, and even subtitles for foreign fi lms directly onto a wearer’s retinas. By adding semitranspar-ent control and communication circuits, light-emitting diodes, and mini-antennas to the polymer lenses, he and his students at the University of Washington, Seattle, have already taken the fi rst steps toward such ON-EYE REALITY ENHANCERS.
“It will be possible to, say, transmit to the hearing impaired that a fi re alarm is in progress if an indicator lights up,” Parviz says. He also suspects that these next-gen-eration lenses could add new dimensions for video and computer gamers.
Parviz sees big market potential in the health arena. For example, glucose-monitoring lenses could be useful to diabetics. And lenses with sensors that keep tabs on cholesterol, sodium, and potassium levels in eye cells could have wide application. A wireless data trans-mitter on the lens could instantly send these data to medics.
But you can’t order hypervision contact lenses at your local For Eyes just yet. The components need to be miniatur-ized further, and the compatibility and safety of the materials have to be certifi ed. Moreover, Parviz notes, getting projected images from the lenses to focus on the ret-ina is no easy task. There are also worries about what such display systems might do to wearers’ eyesight. Parviz acknowledges that his research team has no prior experi-ence with such technology, so “the user interface experience design will be a big part of developing these devices.”
M eanwhile, another group of researchers is aiming to integrate optics into innovative
DIAGNOSTIC TOOLS. Driven by the idea of tracking diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis in places that might be underserved by doctors, bioengineering professor Daniel Fletcher of the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues have attached a smart phone to the end of a fl uorescence microscope.
In its latest evolution, the device, dubbed the CellScope, allows easy view-ing of parasites in blood or spit samples tagged with special dyes that illuminate pathogenic agents under fl uorescent light. The phone’s camera can then take a picture of the slide from the end of the microscope for on-the-spot analysis or for sending via cell network to a remote medic.
In the case of the tuberculosis indicator, the inexpensive dye auramine, which binds selectively to TB microbes ( Mycobacterium tuberculosis ), fl uoresces green under LED light, making the bacteria easily detectable. The bacteria can be identifi ed by size and shape, thus requiring less training to inter-pret than standard tests that demand cell identifi cation. Furthermore, the researchers have developed a cell-phone-based algo-rithm that can calculate how bad a TB infec-tion is from the number of green signals put out by spots on the slide.
BIONIC EYESIGHT, CELL-PHONE MICROSCOPES
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Just as Parviz’ diagnostic contact lenses could help track diseases, the CellScope team suggests that global-positioning-sys-
tem-tagged data could help alert pub-lic health o� cials to the whereabouts of
disease outbreaks. Cell phones are often ubiquitous in
developing countries, where medical resources are scarce. So as developers con-tinue to reduce the size of the CellScope and make it less expensive, they hope it will prove useful around the world as well as in the U.S. health care system.
H ypervision: This prototype is a step toward enhanced contact lenses. Dial-a-medic : A CellScope device configured for fluorescent imaging.
DANIELLA JAEGER wrote this week’s column. Please send comments and suggestions to [email protected].
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ritri hm hm that ct can calculate how bad a Ta TB in enfec-ction is from the number of green signals put out by spots on the slide.
Just as Parviz’ diagnosticcontact lenses could helptrack diseases, the CellScope team suggests that global-positioning-sys-
tem-tagged data could help alert pub-lic health o� cials to the whereabouts of
disease outbreaks.
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