In April, Final Frontier Medical Devices (FFMD) won the first place and $2.6 million in the Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize contest, a competition ran by Qualcomm to create an easy to use, light weight (less than 5 lbs.) device that would make it possible for people to check their vital signs and diagnose various health issues.

Credit: XPrize

The FFMD team was successful in building a device that is pretty much similar to the medical Tricorder in the series. They called their device DxtER (pronounced “Dexter”). When designing the device, the team has proceeded from the perspective of an emergency room doctor, and that makes perfect sense, as that’s the profession of FFMD’s co-founder Basil Harris.

The device was built on the standard ER diagnostic method, where taking blood or urine samples would be done only if necessary.

At Qualcomm’s competition, FFMD was not the only team who had success building such device. Two of the teams that are worth mentioning are Dynamical Biomakers Group, which took second place, and the finalist team DNA Medical Institute (DMI).

Aside from the huge potential that this device has in space, NASA has indicated that this device can be applicable on earth as point-of-care (POC) diagnostics at a patient’s bedside or in a doctor’s office.

Finally, the developers of the device have indicated that it would be such an achievement if we saw the Tricorder making it back out into the space again.