Nutrition

Alistair McEwan of The University of Sydney in Australia will develop a simple, low-cost electronic device built from recycled LEDs and microcontrollers to measure subcutaneous fat levels and thereby determine nutritional status in infants. Current methods are expensive or require a trained health worker, and as such are unsuitable for use particularly in developing countries. In Phase I, they performed several design iterations leading to the production of a low-cost prototype that was used for a small trial in newborns.

Kiersten Israel-Ballard of PATH in the U.S., in partnership with University of Washington and Human Milk Banking (HMB) Association of South Africa, will work to develop and test a low-cost, cell-phone-based networked sensing system to provide safety monitoring of low-technology flash- heating pasteurization of breast milk designated for donation. The goal is to scale-up human milk banking for vulnerable infants in resource-limited settings.

More than 300 million people in arid and semi-arid regions of Africa rely on sorghum as their primary source of food. The grain is one of the few crops that grow well in arid climates, but it is deficient in most essential nutrients and is difficult to digest.

Although rice is a primary source of food for much of the world's population, it is a poor source of many essential micronutrients, as well as protein. As a result, widespread reliance on rice is the primary cause of micronutrient malnutrition throughout much of the developing world. Dr. Beyer is leading an international, collaborative effort called the ProVitaMinRice Consortium. The consortium's members are developing new varieties of rice with increased levels or bioavailability of pro-vitamin A, vitamin E, iron, and zinc as well improved protein quality and content.

Poor nutrition is a major global health problem, contributing to half of the nearly 10 million deaths that occur each year in children younger than 5 and much of the death disease and suffering impacting sub-Saharan Africa. A starchy root crop called cassava is the major source of calories for more than 250 million Africans in this region, but cassava has the lowest protein-to-energy ratio of any staple crop. Dr. Sayre is leading a multidisciplinary team of scientists, brought together as BioCassava Plus, that is working to create nutritious cassava for sub-Saharan Africa.

Bananas are the major staple food in Uganda, where the average person consumes more than 1 kilogram of the fruit each day. Banana-based diets, however, are deficient in vitamin A and iron, as well as in vitamin E. A promising long-term solution to this problem may be to genetically modify crops, including bananas, so that they contain high levels of essential nutrients. Dr.

A Mile for the Brain: Use of Social Entrepreneurship in Providing Last-Mile Access of Enhanced Complementary Foods for Weaning Children in Rural Areas

In Pakistan, as in most developing countries, early child development is a neglected area of public health. Malnutrition and a mother’s incapability to supply effective care can contribute significantly to development delays in children. The innovators at the Association for Social Development are creating an intervention that aims to engage private clinics to promote optimal early development of young children in poor urban environments, through an integrated package of mother and child care.

The integrated community-based early childhood development initiative