Abstract

Early detection is critical for the effective treatment and prevention of diseases. In many cases, diagnosis unfortunately requires time-consuming and costly procedures and instruments, which limit their use to centralized settings with relatively advanced infrastructures and well-trained healthcare professionals [1]. In both developing and industrialized nations, a growing number of contaminants are affecting water supplies from human activity [2]. Within the food industry bacterial culture methods are considered the gold standard by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) [3]. However the need for portable and cost-effective tools with a shorter response time have triggered the development of new technologies. Advances in the use Charge-Coupled Devices (CCD) and Complementary Metal-Oxide Semicunductors (CMOS) have great potential when using proximity detection schemes such as image cytometers.

© 2015 IEEE