Smartphones to be used for self-diagnosis?

Forbes reveals.

Users in the near future could collect saliva, blood or urine on an inexpensive, disposable microchip device, called a lab-on-a-chip, and send the sample to a lab for analysis.

According to Indian Express, Hyun Gyu Park and Byoung Yeon Won, at the Korea Advanced Institute for Science and Technology, revealed that modern smartphones could ably improve the process by replacing the lab work.

Park suggested that the lab-on-a-chip could present a tiny droplet of the sample to be pressed against a phone's touch-screen for analysis, where an app would work out whether you have food poisoning, strep throat or flu.

Touch-screens are highly sensitive to even the slightest fingertip movement. With the right programming, they could soon become advanced enough to detect the differences between bacteria-free saliva and saliva from a sick person when a tiny drop of it is placed on the screen, Times Live notes.

Dr Robert Tshikhudo, head of nanotechnology at Mintek, SA's mineral research organisation, said that "anything is possible; self-diagnosis is the future".