Tricorder screening device
A Canadian team is developing a Star Trek-inspired hand-held medical scanner
A hand-held diagnostic medical scanner
It's hard to think about the future of medicine without conjuring up a mental image of Star Trek's tricorder. That's the wand-like, hand-held device Dr. McCoy would use to scan a patient, in order to diagnose what's wrong. It was pure science fiction, of course.. But as we're learning, science fiction is fast becoming reality.
In fact, there is currently a ten-million-dollar global competition going on, to come up with a real-life version of the Tricorder. It's called the Qualcomm Tricorder X-PRIZE, and seven teams from around the world have made the short-list. The deadline for this X-Prize is early next year. And one of the seven finalists is a Canadian team.
Dr. Sonny Kohli is the leader of the Canadian team, Cloud D-X. He's also an Attending Physician at Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial Hospital in Oakville, Ontario, as well as an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton.
Related Links
- The Cloud DX entry in the Qualcomm Tricorder X-PRIZE
- Qualcomm Tricorder X-PRIZE
- Globe and Mail profile of Dr. Kohli