NutriPhone: a mobile platform for low-cost point-of-care quantification of vitamin B12 concentrations.
Vitamin B12 is necessary for formation of red blood cells, DNA synthesis, neural myelination, brain development, and growth. Vitamin B12 deficiency is often asymptomatic early in its course; however, once it manifests, particularly with neurological symptoms, reversal by dietary changes or supplementation becomes less effective. Access to easy, low cost, and personalized nutritional diagnostics could enable individuals to better understand their own deficiencies as well as track the effects of dietary changes. In this work, we present the NutriPhone, a mobile platform for the analysis of blood vitamin B12 levels in 15 minutes. The NutriPhone technology comprises of a smartphone accessory, an app, and a competitive-type lateral flow test strip that quantifies vitamin B12 levels. To achieve the detection of sub-nmol/L physiological levels of vitamin B12, our assay incorporates an innovative "spacer pad" for increasing the duration of the key competitive binding reaction and uses silver amplification of the initial signal. We demonstrate the efficacy of our NutriPhone system by quantifying physiologically relevant levels of vitamin B12 and performing human trials where it was used to accurately evaluate blood vitamin B12 status of 12 participants from just a drop (~40 μl) of finger prick blood.
Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.|Institute for Nutritional Sciences, Global Health, and Technology (INSiGHT), Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
Seoho
S
Lee
Institute for Nutritional Sciences, Global Health, and Technology (INSiGHT), Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.|School of Applied &Engineering Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
Dakota
D
O'Dell
Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
Jess
J
Hohenstein
Institute for Nutritional Sciences, Global Health, and Technology (INSiGHT), Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.|Division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
Susannah
S
Colt
Institute for Nutritional Sciences, Global Health, and Technology (INSiGHT), Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.|Division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
Saurabh
S
Mehta
Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.|Institute for Nutritional Sciences, Global Health, and Technology (INSiGHT), Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
David
D
Erickson
D006801:Humans; D019095:Point-of-Care Systems / Q000191:economics; D000068997:Smartphone; D014805:Vitamin B 12 / Q000097:blood*; D014806:Vitamin B 12 Deficiency / Q000175:diagnosis
D014805:Vitamin B 12