Detection of Malaria Using Magnetic Fields
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Date
2017-12
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
Malaria is one of the most deadly diseases in the world, infecting approximately 200 million people annually. While malaria is a curable disease, the fact that it is endemic to some of the most poverty stricken and remote regions of the world make it a uniquely challenging disease to combat, especially considering that modern diagnostic techniques require skilled pathologists, cumbersome equipment, and are very time-consuming. A major hurdle in effectively administering treatment and combatting the spread of malaria lies in the development of a novel diagnostic technique that is both fast and inexpensive. The focus of this thesis is the development of an electromagnetic probe to noninvasively detect hemozoin, a paramagnetic byproduct of a malaria infection, in an infected person’s bloodstream.
While such a probe would represent significant advantages over existing diagnostic techniques, the probe design in this paper was found to be unsuitable for the noninvasive detection of hemozoin due to its sensitivity to capacitive effects in fluids. This thesis outlines the design, tuning, testing, and ultimate shortcomings of this probe in detail. Because of the extreme difficulties encountered in developing an in vivo detection technique, it is concluded that the development of an improved technique for ex vivo malaria detection via a blood draw is a more realistic short term goal. The last section of this thesis proposes several such techniques. Such a detection method would still represent vast improvements over current diagnostic methods, provided that it eliminates the need for need for a pathologist, and can handle a large quantity of tests in a timely manner.
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Keywords
malaria, electromagnetic, detector, hemozoin