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Web-based Cell-phone Microscopic Examination of Infectious Parasites With health care costs increasing throughout the world, there is a pressing need for reducing the cost and complexity of biomedical devices [1]. Additionally, with growing demand for high-quality health care in regions of the world where medical infrastructure is below levels found in developed countries, portable devices that can transmit relevant data to remote experts are likely to have a large impact on quantity and quality of care. To this end, several groups have focused on the development of low-cost and rapidly deployable technologies that address common diseases afflicting the third world and common tests performed in both hospital and field environments [1]–[6]. Cell phone cameras are certainly the most ubiquitous optical sensor in both the developed and developing worlds, and are attractive candidates for conversion to medical devices. Some work has already been directed towards this end, with several recent papers discussing the use of cell phones as diagnostic devices. Researchers at UCLA have constructed a modified lensless cell phone that enables holography-based digital microscopy [7], while researchers at UC Berkeley have constructed a complex objective attachment that also transforms a cell phone into a microscope [2]. Additionally, a patent was recently awarded for the use of a cell phone as a spectrometer [8]. Microscopy-based identification of parasites is the basis for both diagnostics and epidemiological assessment of parasite burden globally. A novel tool to observe parasites by virtual microscopy on the Internet was developed by digitizing a series of parasite specimens mounted on ordinary glass slides on the web (http://www.webmicroscope.net/parasitology), alike, for example, the use of Google Maps. These digitized slides were also put for modest requirements on the viewer’s computer and image stacks were captured at different focal planes and viewed for three-dimensional navigation in the specimens [9]. This study is proposed to take advantage of the rapid improvements in microscopic optics driven by the cell-phone industry and the potential of web-based novel library in the field of medical parasitology to innovate an application (software program) on the iPhone/iPad so that we will be able to identify the candidate parasitological specimens with the digitized ones uploaded on http://www.webmicroscope.net/parasitology. On the other hand, this technology will help overcome several problems encountered in quality control of diagnostic parasitology and provide affordable sample examinations simply in the field. References 1. Thekkek N, Richards-Kortum R (2008) Optical imaging for cervical cancer detection: solutions for a continuing global problem. Nat Rev Cancer 8: 725–731. Find this article online 2. Breslauer DN, Maamari RN, Switz NA, Lam WA, Fletcher DA (2009) Mobile phone based clinical microscopy for global health applications. PLoS ONE 4: e6320. Find this article online 3. Bishara W, Su TW, Coskun AF, Ozcan A (2010) Lensfree on-chip microscopy over a wide field-of-view using pixel super-resolution. Opt Express 18: 11181–11191. Find this article online 4. Mudanyali O, Oztoprak C, Tseng D, Erlinger A, Ozcan A (2010) Detection of waterborne parasites using field-portable and cost-effective lensfree microscopy. Lab Chip 10: 2419–2423. Find this article online 5. Wu T, Cheung TH, Yim SF, Qu JY (2010) Clinical study of quantitative diagnosis of early cervical cancer based on the classification of acetowhitening kinetics. Journal of Biomedical Optics 15: 026001. Find this article online 6. Wu J, Cui X, Zheng G, Wang YM, Lee LM, et al. (2010) Wide field-of-view microscope based on holographic focus grid illumination. Opt Lett 35: 2188–2190. Find this article online 7. Tseng D, Mudanyali O, Oztoprak C, Isikman SO, Sencan I, et al. (2010) Lensfree microscopy on a cellphone. Lab Chip 10: 1787–1792. Find this article online 8. Wang SX, Zhou XJ (2008) Spectroscopic sensor on mobile phone. US Patent 7420663:Find this article online 9. Ewert Linder, Mikael Lundin, Cecilia Thors, Marianne Lebbad, Jadwiga Winiecka-Krusnell, Heikki Helin, Byron Leiva5, Jorma Isola6, Johan Lundin (2008)Web-Based Virtual Microscopy for Parasitology: A Novel Tool for Education and Quality Assurance. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 2(10): e315. doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0000315.