Infectious Disease

Praveen Ravi of Athena Infonomics India Private Ltd. in India will develop a real-time surveillance model and simple recommendation engine for local governments in India to better monitor and react to the spread of malaria. They will develop low-cost methods to incorporate existing and diverse data from multiple sources related to the insect vectors and infections, such as the use of vector elimination products and medical reports of malaria cases, and demographic data such as population density.

Gautam Dantas of Washington University in the U.S. will measure the effect of the routine use of antibiotics to treat severe malnutrition or to minimize the risk of HIV infection in young children, on the bacterial populations and antimicrobial resistance genes in the gut. These currently recommended clinical practices might promote the spread of antimicrobial resistance genes to pathogenic bacteria, making infections impossible to treat. They will analyze fecal samples taken at different time-points from 234 children as part of two completed trials in Nigeria and South Africa.

Chelsea Marie of the University of Virginia in the U.S. will perform a genetic screen using CRISPR-Cas9 gene knockout technology to identify the human genes required for infection by the parasite Cryptosporidium, which causes severe childhood diarrhea in developing countries, in order to develop new treatments. They will create pooled libraries of knockout human cells where all the genes in the genome are disrupted to enable high-throughput screens, and infect them with Cryptosporidium hominis, which is the strain causing major health problems in many regions including Brazil and India.

Yang Cheng of Jiangnan University in China will develop a smartphone application to track Chinese individuals who move to work in other countries with high levels of malaria. When these migrant workers return home, there is a risk that they also import malaria, which can then be locally spread via mosquitoes and cause an outbreak. They will develop the application to measure body temperature and track location, and combine it with an existing malaria response system that is used to identify, track and treat malaria in the Jiangsu province, to improve the accuracy and speed of response.

Patrick Degnan with Rachel Whitaker and Rebecca Stumpf of the University of Illinois in the U.S. will harness the CRISPR bacterial immune system to develop a new technology called in vitro CRISPR-capture. They will use this tool to track the abundance and transmission of antimicrobial resistance elements among connected natural and human ecosystems in East Africa.

Ricky Chiu of Phase Diagnostics Inc. in the U.S. will develop a new paper-based oral diagnostic device with high accuracy that can rapidly concentrate and detect malaria biomarkers without needing any power, equipment or personnel training. This will overcome the risks and difficulties involved with finger-prick blood collection, and the lack of sensitivity of current rapid diagnostic tests. It will enable the detection of malaria cases in regions with low densities of infection, and ultimately help eliminate malaria from these regions.

Rebecca Stumpf, Rachel Whitaker and Rebecca Smith of the University of Illinois in the U.S. will develop an approach that incorporates the role of many different organisms to track, model, and prevent the transmission of antimicrobial resistance in Western Uganda, where it is a major problem exacerbated by poverty and disease. It is not well understood how resistance to antibiotics spreads among bacteria. However, most analyses focus on the role of humans whereas animals are also likely to play an important role.

Ilana Brito of Cornell University in the U.S. will develop a model that predicts the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (superbugs) in specific locations by identifying bacteria living in the guts of the local population that carry antibiotic resistance genes, and determining how likely these genes will be passed on to pathogenic bacteria. Knowing where antibiotic resistance might emerge means it can be more effectively monitored and potentially prevented by limiting antibiotic use in those areas.

Alexander Aiken of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom will use the Matched Parallel Cohort (MPC) method in a multi-site study to measure the impact of antibiotic-resistant infections on mortality in low-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa. More complete data on antimicrobial resistance for this population is greatly needed, even though preliminary data suggests that mortality rates are likely higher than for high-income countries.

Ngalla Jillani of the Institute of Primate Research in Kenya will build an infectious infant baboon model of cryptosporidiosis that mimics the disease in human infants under two years old to help identify new treatments. Childhood Cryptosporidium infections are common in developing countries and cause substantial morbidity and mortality. Current models in small animals fail to fully recapitulate the course of infection and disease symptoms in humans, making them less valuable for studying the disease and identifying effective treatments.