A teenage girl has created a 3D-printed lens and app that can detect eye disease

A teenage girl has created a 3D-printed lens that, when fitted onto a smartphone and used with an app, can give a preliminary diagnosis for people with diabetic retinopathy, reportsIEEE Spectrum. Diabetic retinopathy is the most common cause of vision loss for those who suffer from diabetes, and diagnosis of the disease is usually done via a two-hour exam, which also requires a specialized camera to take a photo of the retina. Sixteen-year-old Kavya Kopparapu, along with her team, trained an AI system to identify diabetic retinopathy in photos instead, sharply cutting down the time it takes for a diagnosis.

The system can spot diabetic retinopathy with the same accuracy of a human doctor. In October, Kopparapu partnered with Aditya Jyot Eye Hospital in Mumbai, India, to test her app Eyeagnosis. By that time, the app could not only detect diabetic retinopathy in images, but also blood vessels and other details that would usually require a fluorescent dye injection. Kopparapu has since shipped the first prototype of her smartphone lens to the hospital, which works by focusing the smartphone’s flash to illuminate the retina