Bellevue Student's Smartphone Blood Test Wins Another Award

BELLEVUE, WA - Bellevue student Eshika Saxena is on an award-winning streak for a tool she invented that can diagnose deadly diseases using a smartphone camera.

Saxena was one of four high school students across the U.S. picked by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) to win a Cutler-Bell prize. With the award, Saxena gets a $10,000 cash prize that she can use for college.

Her tool, called "HemaCam," is a 3D-printable device that uses a smartphone camera to analyze blood samples. She designed HemaCam mainly to detect sickle cell disease, and is in talks with the Indian state of Odisha to use the tool to combat high rates of sickle cell there.

In January, Saxena's HemaCam helped her get picked as a Regeneron Science Talent Search finalist, one of just 40 from around the nation. Being picked for the finals comes with a $25,000 award that Saxena can put toward her education.

Saxena is also the founder of the nonprofit TakeKnowledGe, which provides mentorship on STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and math). She has also won a Prudential Spirit of Community award for volunteer work, and a 2018 Davidson Fellows honorable mention for HemaCam.