UCLA Researchers Create Motion Detector in the Microscopic World

UCLA platform that can rapidly detect motile parasites in bodily fluids automatically
parasite under a microscope
(Precision Vaccinations News)

Parasitic infections affect hundreds of millions of people, posing a serious public health threat worldwide. 

Now, researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering have developed an inexpensive and portable platform that can rapidly detect motile parasites in bodily fluids automatically. 

Using their platform, more than 3 mL of a bodily fluid sample can be imaged and analyzed within 20 min, providing a throughput that is orders of magnitude better than traditional optical microscopy-based examination. 

Instead of directly capturing a still image of the fluid sample and searching for parasites, this unique platform takes a different approach and detects motion within the sample. 

This device records high-frame-rate videos of the holographic patterns of the sample illuminated with laser light.   

Then, a motion analysis algorithm analyzes these captured videos at the micro-scale and converts the locomotion of the target parasites within the sample into a signal spot, which is detected and counted using artificial intelligence. 

The UCLA device is compact and lightweight (1.69 kg) and the cost of the prototype is less than $1,850, which can be reduced to less than $800 when manufactured in larger volumes, said this press release.   

"Our platform can be considered as a motion detector in the microscopic world, which locks onto any moving objects within the sample," said Yibo Zhang, a UCLA doctoral student and the first author of this study. 

"Locomotion is used as both a biomarker and a contrast mechanism to distinguish parasites from normal cells." 

The proof of concept of this device has been demonstrated using Trypanosoma parasites, which have multiple subspecies that cause sleeping sickness and Chagas disease. 

The detection limit of the device was quantified as 10 parasites per milliliter of whole blood, which is about 5 times better than the state-of-the-art parasitological detection methods. 

"Thanks to its high sensitivity, ease-of-use, reduced cost, and portability, we believe our technique can improve parasite screening efforts, especially in resource-poor areas and endemic regions," said Hatice Ceylan Koydemir, a UCLA postdoctoral scholar, who is a co-author of this study. 

Other co-authors of the manuscript are Michelle M. Shimogawa, Sener Yalcin, Alexander Guziak, Tairan Liu, Ilker Oguz, Yujia Huang, Bijie Bai, Yilin Luo, Yi Luo, Zhensong Wei, Hongda Wang, Vittorio Bianco, Bohan Zhang, and Rohan Nadkarni. 

No conflicts of interest were disclosed by these researchers. 

This study is supported by the NSF Engineering Research Center (ERC, PATHS-UP), NIH and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

 

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