Gazing at the crystal rods of malaria

Because of its crystal structure and a phenomenon known as optical dichroism, hemo- zoin also absorbs light along its longer axis. In a cycling magnetic field, crystals that are suspended in blood will alternate between a random distribution that permits incident light to trans- mit freely, and an a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Clinical chemistry (Baltimore, Md.) Md.), 2014-10, Vol.60 (10), p.1353-1355
Main Authors: Webster, Molly, Kumar, Vikram Sheel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Crystals
Diagnostic Equipment - economics
Equipment Design
Hemeproteins - analysis
Humans
Magnetic Fields
Malaria
Malaria - diagnosis
Malaria - parasitology
Optical Imaging - economics
Optical Imaging - instrumentation
Optical Imaging - methods
Parasites
Patients
Sensitivity and Specificity
Signal processing
Vector-borne diseases
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Summary:Because of its crystal structure and a phenomenon known as optical dichroism, hemo- zoin also absorbs light along its longer axis. In a cycling magnetic field, crystals that are suspended in blood will alternate between a random distribution that permits incident light to trans- mit freely, and an alignment perpendicular to the mag- netic field lines that blocks the transmitted light in pro- portion to the amount of crystals present. Because the rod shape of the crystals is being detected, this approach is specific and less susceptible to confounding from other dis- eases that may produce hemozoin.
ISSN:0009-9147
1530-8561
DOI:10.1373/clinchem.2013.218248