Automated Low Cost System for
Malaria Diagnosis and Classification
Institutions Involved
University of Westminster,
London,
United Kingdom
Anna University,
Chennai,
India
Objective
Design and development of a cellscope with
embedded software facility to detect and classify
malarial parasite from the blood sample.
UK Principal Investigator:
Dr. Izzet KALE
Acting Head, Department of Electronic, Network & Computer Engineering
Director, Applied DSP and VLSI Research Group,
University of Westminster, 115 New Cavendish Street, London W1W 6UW
ENGLAND, UK.
UK Co- Investigator:
Dr. Dik Morling
Professor
Department of Electronic Network and Computer Engineering,
University of Westminster
UK.
UK Student Member:
Ms. Saumya Kareem
Research Scholar
Department of Electronic Network and Computer Engineering,
University of Westminster
UK.
Indian Principal Investigator:
Dr. S. Muttan,
Professor,
Centre for Medical Electronics
Dept of Electronics and Communication Engineering,
Anna University, Chennai – 600025.
Indian co-investigators
Dr.N.Kumaravel
Professor of Eminence
Centre for Medical Electronics
Dept of Electronics and Communication Engineering
Anna University
Chennai
Dr.K.Sankaran
Director, Centre for Biotechnology
Director, Centre with Potential for Excellence in Environmental
Science
Coordinator, National Hub for Healthcare Instrumentation
Development
Professor, Centre for Biotechnology
Anna University, Chennai
Indian Student Members
Mr.G.Karthik
PhD Research Scholar
Center for Medical Electronics
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering
Anna University, Guindy, Chennai -25.
Mr.A.Shankar
Junior Research Fellow
Center for Medical Electronics
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering
Anna University, Guindy, Chennai -25.
Collaborating Medical Institutes / Experts
Dr.Anil J Purty MD, DNB,MNAMs,
Professor of Community Medicine and Dean ( PG )
Pondicherry Unit of Medical Sciences
( A Unit of Madras Medical Mission )
Kalapet, Puducherry – 605014, India
+91 413 2656271 / 72 Fax: 2656273 Mobile:
9442233460
Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences
The Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences is a multi-speciality hospital
and teaching institute at Kalapet, bordering the state of Tamil Nadu and the
Union Territory of Pondicherry in Southern India.
Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences is the culmination of the Madras
Medical Mission’s far-reaching vision to create a healthier society by providing
affordable and exemplary healthcare services, and training young aspirants.
Spread across 32 acres of landscaped greenery with a thick, lush border of
swaying coconut palms and a breathtaking view of the Coromandel Coast.
Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences is located in inspiring settings.
The Medical College has state-of-the-art and high-tech facilities. WellExperienced Faculties have been drawn from all over India. PIMS offers
students a stimulating atmosphere to pursue their dreams.
During our visit to the institution, Dr.Anil J Purty MD, DNB,MNAMS,
Professor of Community Medicine and Dean ( PG ) Pondicherry Unit of
Medical Sciences has ensured that his institution would be willing to
associate itself in the following activities in connection with this project
i.
Malarial specimen shall be made available
ii. The institute will facilitate field trials with their expertise
iii. Subsequent validation
iv. Other related activities
Funding for the project
Fund sanctioned from UKIERI to
the Indian partner
£19960 (INR 16,06,780)
Travel
Rs 12,73,510
Project cost
Rs 2,41,500
Marketing and promotion
Rs 16,100
Contingencies
Rs 75,670
Total
Rs 16,06,780
Funding
projectcont…..
cont….
Funding
forfor
thetheproject
Actual fund received
from UKIERI
Rs 8,03,390 as on 22.02.2012
Rs 3,21,356 as on 25.05.2012
Rs 3,19,360 as on 01.03.2013
Total fund received Rs 14,44,106 as on 22.08.2013
Travel
Project cost
Marketing and promotion
Contingencies
Funding spent on the
project activities
Travel
Project cost
Marketing and promotion
Contingencies
: Rs 11,44,577
: Rs 2,17,050
: Rs
14,470
: Rs
68,009
: Rs 2,62,913
: Nil
: Nil
: Nil
Funding for the project cont….
Funding committed for Travel
: Rs 10,10,597
the Project timeline
3 Professors for one week visit
2 Students for two week visit
Project cost
: Rs 2,41,500
Fabrication charges for developing prototypes of
cellscope consisting of cell phones, optical lenses,
filters, LEDs, etc out of project cost
Marketing and promotion
: Rs
Hosting a workshop
Contingencies
: Rs
75,670
16,100
Funding for the project cont….
Any under spent or
Overspent foreseen
In kind contribution
from partnering
Institutions
NO
1. Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences
have agreed to provide the samples for testing and validation.
2.
Appasamy Associates, Chennai
have agreed to share the Zemax Optical Design software in
order to design the optical microscope and subsequently
facilitate in the fabrication of the same to interface with the cell
phone.
APPASAMY ASSOCIATES PROFILE
The firm is involved in the manufacturing of ophthalmic products for over three
decades which have been widely appreciated throughout the world.
They have a dedicated R & D team to fulfill state of the art requirements of the
ophthalmic community. More than 15% expenses are spend on development of
new products.
The various manufacturing facilities at Chennai and Pondicherry have got quality
systems certifications, audited by TUV, DNV and ITC for ISO 9000 and ISO 13485
requirements.
The certifications bodies also provided CE marking for various products and CE
compliance certifications for Class I products. Our Slit Lamps and Keratometer
had been awarded UL mark.
MEETING HELD WITH APPASWAMY ASSOCIATES
Dr.N.Kumaravel, Dr.S.Muttan, Mr.G.Karthik of Anna University, Chennai and
Mr.S.Sivagnanam, General Manager and Mr.Arvind Kasthuri, Executive
Director of Appaswamy Associates had a brief meeting about this project.
It has been identified that in order to develop the hardware design a good
amount of exposure in the usage of the software named ZEMAX OPTICAL
DESIGN is a basic necessity using which the optical concepts of the lens
and also the array placements may be studied. Mr.G.Karthik, Research
Scholar of our department has been earmarked for this work and he has
been actively pursuing this.
The properties of light emitting and excitation using filters would also to be
studied to appropriately to choose the type of LED.
By using this software we can design the proof of concept and then the
hardware part is to be done.
Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA)
has been signed between Anna
University and Appaswamy Associates, Chennai
Progress and Project outcomes
Indian Partner of this Project
1. Developed
computer based Image Processing
software using Matlab for the Classification of Malaria
Species using stained images
2. Doing the design and fabrication of optical scope to
be attached with cell phone with the support of M/s
Appaswamy Associates using ZEMAX software.
Computer Based Image Processing System
Project Hardware – Internal Structure model
Progress and Project outcomes
UK Partner of this Project
UK partner have successfully developed a real-time mobile
application for malaria diagnosis including life stage
recognition on an Android platform (Version 2.2 and above)
which will run on the Samsung Galaxy, S series, Note and
tablets.
UKIERI Mobile Phone Malaria Diagnosis Research
Project- Progress from the Westminster UK Team
A fully functional malaria diagnosis tool for thin blood slide images has
been developed in Matlab which includes:
Red Blood Cell Detection and quantification
White Blood Cell detection and quantification
Infected cell identification.
Life stage recognition
Parasitemia estimation
UKIERI Mobile Phone Malaria Diagnosis Research
Project- Progress from the Westminster Team Cont’d..
An effective gametocyte detection set up has been
introduced for post treatment malaria diagnosis.
Quality analysis of microscopic fluorescent images
were carried out which produced promising results
and a scope for further research in the area.
The research is at its latest phase of Mobile Phone
application development.
Real Time Mobile Phone Application
for Malaria Diagnosis
 The objective is to implement the algorithms realised in Matlab on
an Android application platform using java to yield real-time
performance.
 A mobile malaria diagnostic application has been developed
which will enable real-time diagnosis on Android mobile phones
(Version 2.2 and above).
 The application was written in Java and successfully reproduces
the results obtained from our Matlab development environment
one to one in real-time.
 The application has the facility to acquire slide images from the
inbuilt phone camera or a file.
 We are now ready for the optical interface that will turn the mobile
phone camera into a microscope being designed by project
partners from Anna University to go for field trials.
Mobile Phone Malaria Diagnosis Research Outcomes
The application was tested on an android emulator
and has been successfully run on Samsung
Galaxy Mini, Samsung S2, Samsung S3, Samsung
Galaxy Note and Samsung Galaxy Tablet.
The approximate time taken for diagnosis is 42-50
seconds.
The following slides shows the Screen shot of the
application on Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini.
Screen Shot of Android Mobile Phone
Malaria Diagnosis Application
Screen Shot of Android Mobile Phone Malaria
Diagnosis Application Cntd...
Screen Shot of Android Mobile Phone Malaria
Diagnosis Application Cntd...
Screen Shot of Android Mobile Phone Malaria
Diagnosis Application Cntd...
Publications
These experiments have led to the following publications:
 S.Kareem , I .Kale, R.C.S Morling, “Automated Malaria Parasite Detection in Thin
Blood Films:- A Hybrid Illumination and Color Constancy Insensitive, Morphological
Approach “, presented and published at Asia Pacific Circuits and Systems
Conference (APCCAS 2012), December 2012, Taiwan.
 S.Kareem , I .Kale, R.C.S Morling ,”A Novel Fully Automated Malaria Diagnostic Tool
Using Thin Blood Films” presented and published at Pan American Health Care
Exchanges (PAHCE2013), in Madellin, Columbia, May 2013
Planned Publications:
 Mobile Malaria Diagnosis: Real time mobile diagnostic application on Android using
Java.
 Comparative Study on Bright Light Microscopy and Fluorescent Microscopy for
Malaria Diagnosis Using Thin Blood Image Analysis
 Journal on Automated Malaria Diagnosis Using Annular Ring Ratio Method on
Peripheral Blood Images
Visits
UK team consisting of Prof. Izzet Kale , Prof. Dik Morling and Ms
Saumya Kareem paid visit to Anna University on 18th May 2012.
Visits
UK team consisting of Prof. Izzet Kale , Prof. Dik Morling and Ms
Saumia Kareem paid visit to Anna University on 18th May 2012.
Visits
UK team consisting of Prof. Izzet Kale , Prof. Dik Morling
and Ms Saumia Kareem paid visit to Anna University on 18th
May 2012.
Visits
Prof. Izzet Kale , Prof. Dik Morling and
Ms Saumia Kareem paid visit to Anna University on 18th May 2012.
UK team consisting of
Requirements for the Image Acquisition Hardware:
•Image Resolution Needs: Based on the physical size of the Red
Blood Cells (RBCs) which is 6-8 microns, the resolution of the
image is calculated to be approximately 0.25 microns/pixel. To
get finer resolution for species recognition, a resolution of 0.125
/ pixel will be required)
•Data transfer: Image data is currently stored and processed in
.tif format. Transferring the ‘.tif’ image using ‘jpeg’ compression
may be an option .
•Additional requirements include, data transfer from mobile
imaging, device to the host device as necessary.
Visits
UK team consisting of Prof. Izzet Kale , Prof. Dik
Morling and Ms Saumia Kareem paid visit to Anna
University on 18th May 2012.
•Image data and storage: Provision to store approximately
256 images, each approximately taking 1 MB.
18.05.2012
Venue: Anna University Chennai
10.30.11.30
Meeting the faculty, Interactive session
11.30-13.00
Technical Presentation from Westminster
Technical Presentation from Anna
Followed by discussions
13.00-14.00
Lunch break
14.00-16.00
Continued Discussions-Topics include;
Reflections on the presentations and
associated challenges, future visits,
setting up a time and action plan on who
does what and when
16.00
End of Meeting
Visits
Indian team consisting of Prof. N.Kumaravel and Prof. S.Muthan
visited University of Westminster during the period from 5-11-2012 to
7-11-2012
Visits
Indian team consisting of Prof. N.Kumaravel and Prof. S.Muthan
visited University of Westminster during the period from 5-11-2012 to
7-11-2012
Visits
Indian team consisting of Prof. N.Kumaravel and Prof. S.Muthan
visited University of Westminster during the period from 5-11-2012 to
7-11-2012
Dates
Topics
4/11/2012
Arrival -London
5/11/2012
University of Westminster
Campus Tour including
meeting with Dept of
Biosciences
6/11/2012
PresentationAnna University and
University of Westminster
Future Work
UKIERI Progress report
7/11/2012
Departure
Project outreach
No. of exchanges under the project
One exchange each from the partnering
(including academic staff and students) institutions are completed
No. of joint publications / research
TitIe of Paper:
papers
Image analysis for malaria detection and
species identification.
Date of Publication: May 2012
Media mention / Press release
Workshops organised (please include
details like no of participants/key
people/Key speakers and way forward
from the workshop)
International conference on Recent
Trends in Computer Science Engineering
(ICRTCSE 2012)
Will be done shortly during marketing
and promotion by way of hosting a
workshop
A joint workshop by the partnering
institutions will be organized at Anna
University, Chennai during Nov / Dec
2013
Future Activities Planned
Based on NDA signed between Anna University,
Chennai and Appasamy Associates, Chennai, the
optical scope is being designed and will be fabricated.
The second exchange of visits would be undertaken in
the due course which will be used to consolidate this
commitment.
Success indicator of the project
1. We have formed core team consists of engineer
scientist, clinician to work together towards the
development in the direction of the objectives.
2. Image processing software developed in the project is
successfully applied to cytological stained samples.
Sustainability of the project after
the UKIERI funding finishes
1. The outcome of this project would be a working prototype
which will be a handy diagnostic tool to classify malaria.
2. Further, this being a cellscope which is a combination of a cell
phone and a microscope its clinical applications are immense
with excellent societal needs.
3. This prototype if available in large numbers would certainly be
a boon to the third world countries and merit its contribution in
the monitoring and eradication of malaria.
4. Industry will take over and many funding agency provide
funding support and soft loan for commercialization.
Best practices for working on
joint bilateral projects
1. New ideas and approaches to undertake studies in very
large areas to do quantitative analysis opening up
different avenues to the tools developed.
2. Visits aid better understanding of culture, approaches to
problem and identification of common interests.
Issues and Concerns
No significant issues and concerns at the moment