E-DRUG: An open-source smartphone app for quantitative evaluation
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Dear E-druggers,
I am happy to share with you "An open-source smartphone app for the
quantitative evaluation of thin-layer chromatographic analyses in
medicine quality screening" - developed and recently published in an
article by our research group at the University of Tuebingen.
Substandard and falsified medicines present a serious threat to public
health. Simple, low-cost screening tools are important in the
identification of such products in low- and middle-income countries.
In the present study, a smartphone-based imaging software was
developed for the quantification of thin-layer chromatographic (TLC)
analyses. A performance evaluation of this tool in the TLC analysis of
14 active pharmaceutical ingredients according to the procedures of
the Global Pharma Health Fund (GPHF) Minilab was carried out,
following international guidelines and assessing accuracy,
repeatability, intermediate precision, specificity, linearity, range
and robustness of the method.
Relative standard deviations of 2.79% and 4.46% between individual
measurements were observed in the assessments of repeatability and
intermediate precision, respectively. Small deliberate variations of
the conditions hardly affected the results.
A locally producible wooden box was designed which ensures TLC
photography under standardized conditions and shielding from ambient
light. Photography and image analysis were carried out with a low-cost
Android-based smartphone.
The app allows to share TLC photos and quantification results using
messaging apps, e-mail, cable or Bluetooth connections, or to upload
them to a cloud. The app is available free of charge as General Public
License (GPL) open-source software, and interested individuals or
organisations are welcome to use and/or to further improve this
software.
The full article can be accessed using the following link:
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-17527-y
You can download the app here:
https://tlcyzer.github.io
The TLCyzer app was developed in this study without extramural
funding, and further improvements of this app are certainly possible
and desirable. The app is provided as an open-source software, and we
highly welcome interested individuals and organisations to contribute
to its further development.
Best wishes,
Cathrin
Universitat Tuebingen, Pharmazeutisches Institut
Auf der Morgenstelle 8, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany
Research pharmacist, PhD, Medicine Quality Research Group
Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health, University of Oxford, UK
cathrin.hauk@ndm.ox.ac.uk