Science Developing Real Life Tricorders

[JimBowie1958]

THE "QUALCOMM TRICORDER X PRIZE" CHALLEGES MEDICAL SCIENCE TO DEVELOP A STAR TREK-LIKE MEDICAL TRICORDER WITH A $10 MILLION PRIZE - PBT Consulting

In the future, you’ll be able to figure out what’s wrong with you (or your child) simply by scanning them with your cell phone. In the present, two companies are racing to make the first prototype.

The medical tricorder, a handheld device in the Star Trek universe used to diagnose diseases and keep track of vital signs, once seemed a sci-fi impossibility alongside teleportation and alien encounters. Not anymore. The $10 million Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize, officially announced this week, challenges entrants to create mobile platform that can accurately diagnose 15 diseases across 30 patients in three days. We caught up with two startups--Senstore and Scanadu--that think they can pull it off.

Somebody will eventually do this, especially given the development of devices that can produce T-Waves.

Science and technology research news | Scientists develop ‘tricorder’ Star Trek technology

Scientists have developed a new way to create electromagnetic Terahertz (THz) waves - the technology used behind full-body security scanners, at a more efficient and continuous wavelength. Also known as T-waves, the new waves could be used to create medical scanning gadgets and possibly lead to innovations similar to the fictional ‘tricorder’ used in the TV series Star Trek.

Researchers from the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE), a research institute of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in Singapore, and Imperial College London in the UK, have made the T-rays into a much stronger directional beam that was previously possible at room temperature conditions. This has paved the way for smaller, more useable T-ray systems that could be incorporated into a portable sensing, computing and data communications device such as the Star Trek Tricorder.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Yep, it seems that with each passing day sci-fi becomes more reality.

 

[rdean]

Scientists are lazy liars. Education is for snobs. Don't believe what you read unless it's the Bible. Believe in God.

 

[whitehall]

How many more posts are we going to see that start "scientists have developed" when they haven't developed a freaking thing? It wouldn't be so bad if the left hadn't developed a propaganda technique that pretends that taxpayer funded grants produce anything.

 

[rdean]

How many more posts are we going to see that start "scientists have developed" when they haven't developed a freaking thing? It wouldn't be so bad if the left hadn't developed a propaganda technique that pretends that taxpayer funded grants produce anything.

You mean like the thousands of patents that come from NASA? Oh, that's right. All great scientific discoveries come from right wing conservatives. Here, let me list the top ten discoveries and their right wing inventors:

1.
2.
3....

 

[JimBowie1958]

Scientists are lazy liars. Education is for snobs. Don't believe what you read unless it's the Bible. Believe in God.

Would you mind trolling somewhere else?


asshole

 

[JimBowie1958]

How many more posts are we going to see that start "scientists have developed" when they haven't developed a freaking thing? It wouldn't be so bad if the left hadn't developed a propaganda technique that pretends that taxpayer funded grants produce anything.

Do you know what a 'proof of concept' prototype is?

 

[Old Rocks]

No, Jim, Whitey knows nothing at all about any scientific or legal concept that relates to science.

 

[JimBowie1958]

No, Jim, Whitey knows nothing at all about any scientific or legal concept that relates to science.

Are you being sarcastic?

I dont pick up on that sort of thing very well.

All I know is that his comment had no meaningful content.

 

[waltky]

Star Trek Tricorder Moves Closer to Reality...

Star Trek Tricorder Moves Closer to Reality
January 22, 2018 — Assessing someone's medical status was easy on the TV series, Star Trek. Dr. McCoy just waved his tricorder over the patient, and any broken bones, concussions or internal bleeding were instantly revealed.

While in real life, ultrasounds and x-rays help physicians diagnose everything from breast cancer to kidney stones, those scans can not reveal what is inside the masses. Having that immediate knowledge could help millions of patients avoid unneeded stress and surgery. Purdue University Biomedical Engineering professor Ji-Xin Cheng has devoted his life’s work to technology that will be able to provide that internal view. He and his team have developed several medical tools that help diagnose patients using sound and light. “Eventually we want to make a device like the tricorder in Star Trek," he explains, "so our dream is to make a movie into a real practice.”

Label-free imaging

In conventional medicine, surgeons must either cut out suspect tissue for analysis, or risk exposing already very sick patients to fluorescent dyes and nanoparticles. These "labels" light up lesions so doctors can study them. Team member Jesse Vhang explains their technique - called "label-free imaging" - eliminates more invasive or toxic procedures by bouncing light off molecules in the tumor. “We do not need a label," he points out. "We can basically look at the vibrations of the molecules and these vibrations can generate signals in our microscope.”

Ji-Xen Cheng's team has been shedding new light on cell biology using the advanced spectroscopic imaging tools developed in their lab.​

Those vibrations serve as molecular fingerprints, unique to each type of molecule. The patterns can be mapped to identify such things as lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids. In essence, the devices give doctors the ability to look at a patient in three instead of two dimensions. Vhang says, “For example we could use this to image biological samples from patients. We can see if the patient has cancer, which usually accumulates a lot of lipids.” The label-free imaging devices have shown promise in identifying kidney, liver, and breast cancer.

MarginPAT

One device, the MarginPAT, funded by the National Institute of Health, will also help breast cancer surgeons remove tumors more efficiently and accurately. In the United States, about a quarter of all breast cancer patients must undergo a second surgery to remove missed malignant cells. The developers expect MarginPAT will dramatically reduce that number. Cheng and his partner, Dr. Pu Wang, founded Vibronix to manufacture the device. Wang says it could revolutionize medicine around the world. "I think this will be good in mainland China where medical practice is not as good as the tier one hospitals in the big cities or aboard. They will be able to use the setup to provide the same surgery as the big city doctors."

If all goes as planned, the MarginPAT will be on the market within three years and several more of Cheng’s label-free imaging devices will not be far behind, making his dream of a real Star Trek tricorder one step closer to reality.

Star Trek Tricorder Moves Closer to Reality