Smart phones might one day diagnose HIV

Russian scientists Dmitry Fedyanin and Yury Stebunov have created a new sensor that can detect cancer cells and diagnose diseases such as HIV, hepatitis, and herpes in the comfort of your own home.

"We are using a nano-mechanical circuit with a very high sensitivity," Fedyanin told RBTH.

Previously, such technologies worked only under low temperature and in a vacuum. Fedyanin and Stebunov's invention, however, is unique because it's designed to operate at room temperature and normal pressure.

Andrew Garazha, a researcher at Insilico Medicine at Johns Hopkins University in the U.S., is certain that in a few years it will be possible to put a sensor in a smartphone and monitor changes in one's body.

"The clinical tests have yet to be done,'' Garazha said. "I doubt the sensor will be widely used by doctors, but it can start a revolution at the premedical stage when a patient doesn't yet know that he/she is ill, and will then need to get tests done."

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