Infectious Disease

Allya Paramita Koesoema of the eHealth and Telemedicine Society in Indonesia will develop a pro-vaccination campaign to counteract the widespread negative views of vaccinations in Indonesia by engaging religious leaders and health workers in local communities to directly address misconceptions. Anti-vaccination narratives, many based on religious misconceptions, have spread through the country, largely via social media, leading to a decrease in child vaccination coverage.

Owens Wiwa of the Clinton Health Access Initiative in Nigeria will develop an efficient and reliable system for tracking diagnostic samples and delivering results to improve the efficiency of HIV diagnosis and treatment of newborns in Nigeria. Over 3.5 million people in Nigeria are estimated to be living with HIV, and every year up to 40,000 newborns become infected. Many HIV-exposed infants are not properly diagnosed or monitored, leading to delays in treatment and worsening of the disease.

The intestinal disease cholera uses cell-to-cell signaling to coordinate its growth and virulence in the human gut. John March of Cornell University in the U.S. is developing strains of commensal bacteria that naturally reside in the gut to express the key chemical signals used by cholera to abort the colonization process and allow the pathogen to pass through the G.I. system without causing symptoms.

Olorunsogo Adeoye of the African Field Epidemiology Network in Nigeria will set up an immunization tracking system based on SMS in Nigeria to register children's immunizations, send out reminders of vaccination schedules, and educate families on the importance of routine childhood immunizations. Late or missing vaccinations are a major cause of morbidity and mortality particularly in developing countries. Poor vaccination coverage is due in part to a lack of information given to families on the importance and time-sensitivity of vaccinations and on the recommended schedules.

Natasha Gous of SystemOne in the U.S. will develop a mobile application and digital platform to support people testing themselves for HIV by sending them reminders, offering guidance, and reporting the results. Simple and rapid diagnostic tests and self-testing are now being used across low-resource settings to improve the diagnosis of HIV infections. However, results need to be interpreted manually, which can be difficult for uneducated users, and linked with health facilities so the appropriate care can be given.

Daniel Carucci of The Immunity Charm Foundation in the U.S. will produce a low-cost bracelet as a visual cue to encourage parents in south Asia to get their children fully vaccinated at the appropriate times. There is a widely held belief in south Asia that black beads on a bracelet protect children from evil spirits. Using that symbol of protection they have designed an 'Immunity Charm' bracelet for infants, which has the traditional black beads as well as a series of colored beads, each representing a vaccine that protects against one disease.

Andrew Ellington of the University of Texas at Austin in the U.S. and the Alliance for Global Health will create stable enzymes that can be produced in developing countries and used directly in diagnostic assays to reduce costs. Enzymes are required in many diagnostic tests to detect pathogens such as malaria and HIV. However, they can be very expensive to buy and require refrigerated transport, making the tests prohibitively expensive in many developing countries where they are often most needed.

Lu Lu of Shanghai Medical College, Fudan University in China working with Ling Ye of Emory University in the U.S., will design a potent HIV vaccine using selected sequences of one of the virus's envelope proteins to trigger the production of broadly neutralizing antibodies. This has been problematic due to the diversity of the viral envelope glycoprotein and its glycosylation shield, which prevent the immune system from recognizing it.

Clif Barry of The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the U.S., working with Qian Gao of Shanghai Medical College Fudan University in China, will support a clinical trial to shorten the treatment time for tuberculosis (TB) from six months to four months by helping to identify predictive biomarkers in individuals that only require the shorter treatment. Shortening treatment when possible will substantially reduce costs and the emergence of drug resistance, which is a major barrier to eradicating this deadly disease.

Babak Javid of Tsinghua University in China, working with Paul MacAry of the National University of Singapore in Singapore, will study human monoclonal antibodies that protect individuals from infection by Mycobacterium tuberculosis and could be used to develop a tuberculosis vaccine. Tuberculosis is the world's most deadly infectious disease, and the causative bacteria are present in latent form in up to a quarter of the global population.