Very cool - from nanowerk:
New blood test works in real-time, simply by shining a light through the skin
Blood tests convey vital medical information, but the sight of a needle often causes anxiety and results take time. A new device developed by a team of researchers in Israel, however, can reveal much the same information as a traditional blood test in real-time, simply by shining a light through the skin. This optical instrument, no bigger than a breadbox, is able to provide high-resolution images of blood coursing through our veins without the need for harsh and short-lived fluorescent dyes.
"We have invented a new optical microscope that can see individual blood cells as they flow inside our body," says Lior Golan, a graduate student in the biomedical engineering department at the Israel Institute of Technology, or Technion, and one of the authors on a paper describing the device that is published today in the Optical Society's (OSA) open-access journal Biomedical Optics Express ("Noninvasive imaging of flowing blood cells using label-free spectrally encoded flow cytometry").
By eliminating a long wait-time for blood test results, the new microscope might help spotlight warning signs, like high white blood cell count, before a patient develops severe medical problems. The portability of the device could also enable doctors in rural areas without easy access to medical labs to screen large populations for common blood disorders, Golan notes.
More faster please!
