Targeting white blood cells with smart phones?

So nowadays, we use our smart phones to do everything! Why not use them to cure cancer? I was sitting in class tonight when I got an amazing idea for my Design #1.

Here's the breakdown:
I've been thinking for awhile now how  to target the white blood cells once I do separate them from all the other junk in the blood stream. It is essentially like the defense missile system the government uses to shoot down rogue satellites and potential enemy weapons. Ridiculously complicated and expensive stuff. Well my answer is smart phones!
I just so happen to have a Samsung Indulge lying around that I have been meaning to create apps just for fun. Now I have a practical application I am going to produce. These smart phones come infused with a bunch of gizmos including a fast processor, ample memory, a good quality camera, accelerometer, voice recognition, wifi, and gps! Basically all of the essentials needed for the brain of a "missile seeking instrument" or a white blood cell radiating machine!

Consider this!

What if you had a smart phone fitted with a convex lens that has the ability to view white blood cells at a microscopic level?
 And what if that smart phone controlled a laser with the ability to vaporize white blood cells on a three dimensional axis?

I have no intention of building this system from scratch! I intend to use systems already proven and perfected, put them together like Lego's and create a machine that hopefully will be used in the future.

Check back soon for progress!

Design #2 Progress

So I wanted to update this tonight since I had a bit of spare time. Since my last post I have purchased a Peltier device from somewhere in Asia and it is currently in transit. Before I suggested you searched how a Peltier device works, instead I am going to tell you how it works.
To give you an idea of what the little bugger looks like:

 

Now to quote directly from the http://www.tellurex.com/:
"The basic concept behind thermoelectric (TE) technology is the Peltier effect—a phenomenon first discovered in the early 19th century. The Peltier effect occurs whenever electrical current flows through two dissimilar conductors. Depending on the direction of current flow, the junction of the two conductors will either absorb or release heat. Explaining the Peltier effect and its operation in thermoelectric devices, is a very challenging proposition. It ultimately keys on some very complex physics at the sub-atomic level. Here we will attempt to approach it from a conceptual perspective with the goal of giving readers an intuitive grasp of this technology (i.e., without getting too bogged down in the minutiae)."

Design #1 Progress

So after that post this morning I was hell bent on getting this project started again. I searched for about an hour trying to find a place to purchase the Turks lysing solution with no luck, except a sketchy place in Australia but that would have taken a few weeks. So instead I was able to find the MSDS for Turks, and the primary ingredient turns out to be acetic acid, which we all know is vinegar. After a trip to the grocery store, I was able to obtain these pictures on my microscope, the blood was donated willingly by my brother.

Before blood sample was added

Picture of the coagulated red and white blood cells

Vinegar added to the coagulated cells, only the white remain. I'm no doctor, but  Eric has a high white blood cell count (he's sick).

Welcome to my first blog! The purpose of this blog is to motivate myself to finish important research and also organize some of my thoughts in some sort of manner. I am currently working on two biomedical designs that I would like to share with you. 

The first is an acute and chronic leukemia treatment that utilizes a coherent light source to filter, target and vaporize immature white blood cells. This treatment would be intended to kill cancerous white blood cells that have spilled into the blood stream and destroy them before they begin to attack other body organs.

The second is a generic treatment designed to warm a cancer patient’s blood temperature to 107.6 degrees Fahrenheit (which is the known temperature at which cancerous cells die), and then simultaneously cool the blood down to the normal body temperature using a semi conductive Peltier device.  This design will utilize a temporal catheter such as one’s used in kidney/liver failure patients, but instead will filter blood flow out of a cancer infected organ. Induced Hyperthermia is a well known treatment for cancer worldwide, however is generally unpracticed in the United States.

The current Problem I am having for design #1 is isolating white blood cells to vaporize with the laser light. In research labs, doctors generally use Turks solution to lyse a sample of blood which eliminates the red blood cells and stains the nuclei of white blood cells. I need this because I have a digital microscope and goal number 1 is to record a white blood cell being vaporized.

From there I will determine the minimum/maximum power needed to explode the little buggers at various wavelengths. 

The lysing solution I need to obtain is most likely Turk's Solution, which I may have to take a microbiology course in order to snag. Other wise, plan b would be to use phlegm which contains mostly white blood cells, however which of most are dead or dying.

For design 2, I need to order a peltier device from Taiwan, which I should do now that I think of it. The peltier device is just in simple terms silicon that is surrounded by two sheets of metal which when has electricity applied generates a hot and a cold side. (Look it up, its actually pretty cool how it works)

 With the peltier device, I need to obtain a sample of blood and figure out how to warm the blood up to 107.6 degrees F and observe the chemical properties and how they react then cool it back down to 98.6 degrees F and repeat.

Check back for more updates, im done typing for now!