My bold idea is addressing the vulnerability to HIV, harmful gender norms, access to health services and poor life-skills; and low economic capacity of girls of Mukuru Slums, Nairobi in one program that is holistic and sustainable.
Often, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Ng is unknown as diagnostic costs are too high. Our test will permit a simple, noninvasive diagnosis of gonorrhea and its antibiotic susceptibility allowing unique individualized testing and treatment.
Pneumonia is the world’s leading cause of child mortality, causing 1.4 million deaths per year in children under five. Pneumonia is usually diagnosed based on x-ray images and laboratory/clinical examination, requiring trained medical professionals. In poor-resource settings, however, the most stricken by pneumonia, neither this technology nor the trained health care workers are present.
The Camera Oximeter will be a novel, ultra low-cost pulse oximeter that uses the built-in camera of a mobile phone to measure oxygen saturation, heart rate and respiratory rate. Software will include an advisory system for the diagnosis and treatment of respiratory diseases (pneumonia) in remote areas & community hospitals of low income countries.
Compared with industrialized countries, nations of Africa and Asia report two to 10 times the rate of child pneumonia, the killer of 2.1 million children each year. A bedside finger prick blood test developed by this project will improve pneumonia diagnosis where chest x-rays, essential for pneumonia diagnosis and management, are unavailable, saving lives and resources.
We aim to develop a paper-based test that takes advantage of the specificity of phage tail spike proteins in detecting bacteria by using them to separate, concentrate and detect the bacteria that causes typhoid fever: Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi.
WHO estimates that 10% to 30% of all patients in developing country health care facilities acquire an infection. An innovative sticker for hospital surfaces developed by Lunanos Inc. changes colour when a cleaner is applied and fades color after a predetermined period of time, helping staff track and ensure cleanliness of equipment and other frequently touched surfaces.
This work focuses on Canada, India, and Uganda, and will lead to new therapeutic strategies that target the molecular chaperone Hsp90, the fungal Achilles' Heel, to save human lives.
Grow-your-own bacterial defenders against waterborne microbial diseases. Prof. David McMillen and his team will explore creating engineered bacteria to reside in the gut, sense harmful invaders, and respond by producing viruses to target and kill the disease organisms (typhoid and cholera are examples of microbial targets).
Measles and rubella are major contributors to childhood mortality and disability, representing a significant global economic and social cost. Diagnosis currently relies on expensive immunoassay robots, which are only available in central laboratories. A decentralized surveillance system powered by paper-based digital microfluidics (an emerging liquid-handling technology) could be the solution. The system relies on an automated platform that can do laboratory-quality measles and rubella immunoassays using a single drop of blood.