The first core project of the Humanitarian Technology Trust is the OpenFlexure Microscope.
Microscopy for Everyone
Microscopy is an essential technology for global health. Cancer, malaria, and countless other conditions are routinely diagnosed by microscopy. Automated digital microscopy, performed by slide scanners, is revolutionising the speed, quality, and robustness of diagnosis. However, this shift to digital diagnostics is further widening the gap between healthcare outcomes in the wealthiest nations and those in underserved communities around the globe.
Donated equipment cannot easily close this divide. Equipment designed for state-of-the-art healthcare laboratories often fails to function as intended in more challenging environments that lack stable power and other essential infrastructure. This is compounded by a lack of company engineers available to service such equipment.
We are taking an entirely different approach to digital diagnostics for global health. The OpenFlexure Microscope is a digital robotic microscope capable of automated slide scanning. The entire design of the microscope is publicly available for anyone to manufacture, modify, and adapt. The cost to manufacture is less than 5% of the cost of a comparable commercial slide scanner. We believe the most sustainable path to scaling digital diagnostics in the Global South is to collaborate with local manufacturers to co-design technology that is appropriate for the environment in which it will be used. We then work with these partners to establish medically certified production of microscopes within their countries. Local manufacturing ensures locally relevant technology and the availability of maintenance engineers.
Our technology is already in use across the globe in education and agriculture, with numerous international organisations evaluating it for clinical use. The next phase of our journey is to work with partners to establish local, quality-assured production and collaborate with clinics and regulators to ensure that locally manufactured microscopes can be integrated into local healthcare systems.
A Global Project Making Global Impact
The OpenFlexure Microscope was first conceived as a novel way to 3D print a microscope in an academic research laboratory. As the open prototype design improved the OpenFlexure community scaled, to a global community of researchers, educators, clinicians, makers, and academics.
The Humanitarian Technology Trust is supporting the OpenFlexure project to improve the open design, to produce the necessary training material for using the microscope, and is supporting manufacturers establish local quality managed production of microscopes. As manufacturing partners push towards regulated production of diagnostic microscopes, we are also supporting microscopes for medical training, education, and research.