Underdog team wins millions in competition to make real-life tricorder

Enlarge / Harris brothers pose in uniform with prop tricorders from the Star Trek series. (credit: XPRIZE)

The quest is over for the most promising automated diagnostic gadget, inspired by the fictional "tricorder" used by Dr. McCoy in Star Trek. A seven-member, self-funded team took first place at the international Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE competition-and a $2.6 million prize.

The team's prototype, called DxtER (pronounced Dexter) works with an iPad and is designed to walk a patient through self-diagnosing 34 medical conditions, The Washington Post reports. The team beat out 312 other teams, including some backed financially by governments and corporate sponsors.

The team was led by Dr. Basil Harris, an emergency medicine doctor from Pennsylvania who founded Final Frontier Medical Devices with friends and three of his siblings to come up with the device. They will now move their beta version on to the next stages of development and, potentially, FDA testing.

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