Ultrasensitive malaria detection device

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The grant proposal is for a small, turn-key robust device that would serve as an accurate and sensitive detector of malaria parasite infection in blood cell samples. The device is based on third harmonic generation (THG) light emission that is generated when a pulsed ultrafast infrared laser is focussed on a sealed sample vial containing blood with malaria infection. All malaria parasites produce a digestive by-product called hemozoin which is made of heme waste from the haemoglobin that the parasite feeds on. The hemozoin gives off strong THG blue light when the infrared laser is focussed on it. Uninfected blood cells do not emit this light. This allows us to detect and count infected cells unambiguously from blood samples without having to label the cells because the THG light is only produced by the hemozoin in the food vacuoles of the parasites. This device would greatly improve on the main clinical method currently used in endemic countries that employs Giemsa staining of the parasites followed by time consuming manual counting of the stained cells under an optical microscope by a trained technician. The problems associated with obtaining rapid and accurate clinical measurements of parasite infection has led to over diagnosis and over treatment of malaria in endemic countries because of the throughput problems and expertise requirements associated with the existing staining based clinical methods.