A Custom 3D Printed Design of Smartphone-Based Adapter for Colorimetric Biomarker Concentration Measurements

Abstract

Recently, the emerging interdisciplinary research in biosensing has been increasing, due to the advances in 3D printing technology. In this article, we demonstrate the feasibility of the novel smartphone-based 3D printed design with the aid of an Android application intended solely to measure the concentration of multiple biomarker samples based on the colorimetric detection approach. The optical and electronic elements inside the adapter provide a reliable imaging platform for image acquisition, analysis, rapid testing, and measurements. 3D printed smartphone-based adapter design has been implemented and tested for colorimetric applications in biomarkers including glucose, urea, triglycerides, bilirubin (Total Serum Bilirubin (TSB)), and High-Density Lipoprotein (HDL). The compatible smartphone-based system resulted in a highly reliable regression coefficient (R2) of more than 0.9 for the tested samples. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on the effects of multiple illumination sources on multiple biomarkers with a complete set of results depending solely on the smartphone. This enables reliable use of the compatible system in biomarker testing.