10/05/2021
Once assembled, the Foldscope is about the size of a bookmark. The Foldscope weighs 8 grams and comes in a kit with multiple lenses that provide magnification from 140X to 2,000X. The kit also includes magnets that can be stuck onto the Foldscope to attach it to a smartphone, allowing the user to take pictures of the magnification. The magnification power is enough to enable the spotting of organisms such as Leishmania donovani and Escherichia coli, as well as malarial parasites.
A Foldscope can be printed on a standard A4 sheet of paper and assembled in seven minutes. Prakash claims that the Foldscope can survive harsh conditions, including being thrown in water or dropped from a five-story building.
Following the first generation of simple Foldscopes, twelve medical diagnostic Foldscope variants are in development with each type being designed specifically to aid in the identification of a particular disease-causing organism. Included with each Foldscope, a picture is provided of the particular microbe to look for on each disease-specific variant. To enable several people to use them at once, each microscope is able to project images with a built-in projector. The Foldscope is designed to be assembled by the end user, and hence is color-coded to help with the assembly.
Each unit costs less than one US dollar to build, with estimates varying from 50 cents to 97 cents.
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