The SMARTest App for a SMARTphone

Iphones and any type of smartphones are known for its unlimited wealth of myriad knowledge. It can tell you the weather, keep track of what you eat, give you ratings of the near gas prices, and can keep you entertained for several hours on end. What is interesting about smartphones is the eclectic amount of apps it has, and day by day the numbers keep increasing, however, by remodeling an accessory to it, a smartphone can be turned into a gadget that can detect HIV and syphilis in just fifteen minutes!

This is the remodeled device

Developed by a research team from Columbia University, this device can effectively track if one has HIV or syphilis with the indication of specific biological markers derived from a single drop of blood. It performs a triplexed immunoassay not currently available in a single test format: HIV antibody, treponemal-specific antibody for syphilis, and non-treponemal antibody for active syphilis infection. Compared to the original test called the ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay), this new ELISA test performs the same functions but at a significantly lower price. The equipment needed for the original ELISA test can cost over twenty thousand dollars, but the makeshift test can cost just thirty four dollars.


The amazing thing about this test is that it is powered by the smartphone. There is no stored energy being used and it requires minimal power to operate. When first starting the creation of this test, lots of power was needed to operate the ELISA. The first job of the engineers was to elimination the power-consuming source which was a vacuum of some sort. The goal of this test is to make it cheap and affordable to many people as possible. At first, this test was aimed to reduce the current price of the ELISA to something that Americans can afford, but after seeing that reducing the power proved to be successful to projected predictions, the test then aimed to be affordable enough to help people in third-world countries, specifically countries in Africa such as Rwanda, where there has been an ongoing battle with HIV for centuries.

The test trials were first tried on by ninety-six patients and when it was proved to be successful, the next trials were then planned for one-hundred patients in Rwanda. The goal of this test is to prevent HIV transfer from mother-to-child by means of early diagnosis and with the affordability of this test, this idea may become reality for many people in third world countries.  

This test is small,portable, easy to use, cheap and can produce results fast. Why wouldn't anyone want such a handy and useful tool? It's better than any app a phone has to offer and I think that it is a great investment for anyone in the near future.