The lensless Bio-FlatScope is a small, inexpensive camera to monitor biological activity that can’t be captured by conventional instruments. The device could eventually be used to look for signs of cancer or sepsis or become a valuable endoscopy tool.

First, catch the tiger.

Then attach Bio-FlatScope, the latest iteration of lensless microscopy being developed at Rice University.

That particular use is fanciful but not far-fetched, according to Jacob Robinson, an electrical and computer engineer at Rice’s George R. Brown School of Engineering who led the recent effort to test Bio-FlatScope in living creatures.

The research team’s FlatCam, a lensless device that channels light through a mask and directly onto a camera sensor, aimed primarily outward at the world at large. The raw images looked like static, but a custom algorithm used the data they contained to reconstruct what the camera saw.

The new device looks inward to image micron-scale targets like cells and blood vessels inside the body, even through the skin. Bio-FlatScope captures images that no lensed camera can see — showing, for example, dynamic changes in the fluorescent-tagged neurons in running mice.

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Materials provided by Rice University. Original written by Mike Williams. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.