Speakers focus on advances in cancer research in Israel

The most advanced diagnostic and treatment tools in the world are of no value to millions of people across the globe — because they don't have access to them.
As director of the Center for Bioengineering in the Service of Humanity and Society at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Professor Boris Rubinsky is working to create inexpensive methods of diagnosing and treating disease.

Through research partnerships in Mexico and elsewhere, Rubinsky is developing a portable ultrasound machine that connects an ultrasound transducer, or sensor, to a cellular phone. Through this technology adaptation, a physician can travel to a rural clinic and transmit ultrasound images to a central office. That eliminates the need to purchase a $70,000 piece of equipment in every town the physician visits, according to Rubinsky. "Medical imaging is not available to about three-quarters of the world's population and it turns out big chunks of that population does have access to cellular phone technology because it doesn't require an infrastructure," Rubinsky said.

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