Silicon Valley - Cellscope

8/13/2019 Silicon Valley - Cellscope

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Sound innovation

Cellscope is working to create digital first-aid kits that run on your smartphone

Meenakshi Radhakrishnan-Swami

COPY B!"#S

"$ve %ecome pretty good at looking at my inner ear&' rik (ouglas grins) You could %e

forgiven for thinking this is a contortionist showing off his latest skills& even as you

wonder *ust +how, that would %e possi%le) hen& (ouglas deftly snaps on a small

conical piece of plastic to the %ack of his iPhone case and inserts it into his ear) On

the screen& facing us& pops up a circular image of a pale& stretched mem%rane . it$s

his tympanic mem%rane /ear drum& to the layman0) 1his is what a healthy ear drum

looks like . "$ve also %ecome an e2pert on healthy and unhealthy ears&' he says&

raising his voice slightly as the noise of construction of the rans%ay Center outsideCellscope$s office in San 3ranscisco$s SOM4 district threatens to drown out the

conversation)

#ot e2actly the area of e2pertise you$d e2pect from an electrical engineer-turned-

%ioengineering postdoctoral student-turned entrepreneur) But then& for the past year

and more& the 55-year-old (ouglas has %een working on the Cellscope Oto& an

iPhone attachment that transforms the smartphone into an otoscope& used %y

doctors to look inside ears) 6is three-year-old start-up& Cellscope& is preparing for

the commercial launch of the device ne2t year& even as doctors across the 7S have

%een clipping the Oto onto their phones for the past several months in an alphatesting programme) 4nd while it$s still very early days yet& (ouglas already has plans

to introduce an array of devices using the smartphone platform) 18e want to develop

a digital first-aid kit with specialised ear& skin and eye devices) 8hen someone$s

unwell at home& we want you to *ust reach for the kit& clip on the appropriate device

9to the phone: and collect images&' he says)

Cellscope didn$t start out with a mandate to peek into people$s ears) Rather& it is the

interesting outcome of an effort %y (aniel 3letcher& a professor of %ioengineering at

the 7niversity of California& Berkeley& to engage his undergrad optics class . in

;


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(ouglas and Sheng spun off Cellscope as a separate company& %ased on the

technology they had helped refine at the Berkeley la%)

Paging (r Mom

8hile the Cellscope team had taken on licence the technology from Berkeley& they

weren$t certain what would %e the most commercially via%le product) 3or the ne2t

several months& ideas were tossed around& including %lood analysis& for

chemotherapy and so on) 7ltimately& though& the founders @eroed in on the otoscope

as the most attractive first product for the new company& 1where a small start-up

could make a %ig impact')

4 smartphone-%ased otoscope is certainly less complicated than& say& a tu%erculosis

diagnosis system& which was one of the pro*ects initiated at the la%) But that wasn$tits only attraction) ar infections are the most common reason for visits to the

paediatrician in the 7S . research says over ?


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the first commercial production of the device is currently underway) But this is

targeted at the medical community a full-fledged commercial launch won$t happen

%efore end-;


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here$s also the fact that Cellscope is currently working only on 4pple iPhones . a

premium& e2pensive gadget %y itself) Operating systems such as 4ndroid& in

contrast& offer far greater choice across price points and device sophistication)

(ouglas concedes the point) 18e picked one handset and have optimised our device

for that) But yes& to capture a wider market& it would %e interesting to work on otherphones as well)

4nd capturing a wider market is certainly part of Cellscope$s gameplan) he original&

high magnification technology created at Berkeley la%s . and its focus on emerging

economies -- hasn$t %een forgotten) 18e want to market 9our devices: around the

world as well as launch other applications in the ne2t five years&' says (ouglas) 1his

is not *ust a way for rich people to get care faster) 8e want to create ways to deliver

healthcare %etter& not *ust a little faster or a little cheaper) 8e can do that %y taking a

common device& %uilding in new capa%ilities and offering it as an e2tension to

healthcare)'

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Silicon Valley - Cellscope