Scientists Develop New System that Use Mobile Phone to Treat Disease

A study published in Nature Communications show that it is possible to use mobile phones as synthetic "switching" system to detect and treat diseases.

While mobile phones are very useful in collecting, processing, and transmitting information, they rarely provide access to biological systems. However, a group of scientists from the University of Maryland are close to finding a way to mend the gap between the worlds of electronics and biology. They banked on the electronic nature of redox molecules, which could be "programmed" using a microelectronic device such as mobile phones. They engineered bacteria to respond to redox molecules which led to a lot of possibilities such as signalling a group of cells to exhibit the same reaction; and turning on and off gene expression. The researchers are looking into electrically stimulating bacteria to make a drug and deliver it on a particular location.

Read more details in Scientific American.