Health Diagnostics

The Nanobiosym Gene-RADAR nanotechnology platform enables rapid, accurate, mobile, gold-standard viral load monitoring at the point-of-care at an affordable cost. In collaboration with Partners in Health in Rwanda, Nanobiosym will deliver, pilot, and evaluate Gene-RADAR, to provide early detection of HIV and demonstrate the eradication of mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) through its mobile health applications. In combination with timely antiretroviral therapy (ART) this platform could save thousands of young Rwandan lives.

Devastating brain injury and neonatal death caused by hyperbilirubinemia (kernicterus) is very common in low resource settings (LRS) but can be prevented by early detection and treatment with light therapy. A major roadblock to the global effort to eliminate kernicterus is the inability to measure total plasma bilirubin (TB) in most LRS, including many referral hospital centers. To meet this need, we are developing an inexpensive Point-of-Care system that rapidly measures TB.

The proposed Rapid Strip Assay (RDT) for Glycated Albumin (GA) will allow us to determine with good sensitivity and moderate specificity if a pregnant woman is likely to develop diabetes. Combining biometric information and health history with the RDT result will improve specificity. The screening result can be used to counsel high-risk women on diet and exercise and additional care during delivery, or to provide them a follow-up OGCT and insulin.

A simple and accurate instrument-free, low-cost Point-of-Care CD4 test that is applicable in poor, hard-to-reach settings could sustainably increase uptake of antiretroviral intervention and reduce loss to follow-up associated with centralized laboratory-based testing.

Preterm birth leads to more annual neonatal deaths (1 million) than any other single cause; these deaths primarily occur in low income settings where many infants are born at home and gestational age is rarely assessed. Innovative ways to identify preterm infants in the community are needed to facilitate rapid and appropriate targeting of interventions and referral.

To improve rural health care for expecting mothers and newborns, Diagnostics For All (DFA) proposes to develop two accurate, low-cost (<$0.10) postage stamp-sized paper-based diagnostics for expecting mothers and newborns that will be used to detect - and enable proper treatment of - (i) anemia and hyper/hypoglycemia and (ii) hypertensive disorders. These point-of-care diagnostics require only a drop of blood or urine and require no additional steps beyond applying the sample.

Harsha Thirumurthy of the University of North Carolina in the U.S. along with colleagues in Kenya will encourage individuals in sub-Saharan Africa to use self-testing HIV kits to screen their current and future sexual partners for HIV status. An oral test for HIV that can be performed by an individual at home has been approved in Kenya, reducing social and economic barriers of testing in a clinic.

Ratul Narain of BEMPU Technologies Private Ltd. in India will develop and test a temperature monitoring baby bracelet to reduce the incidence of hypothermia in newborns. Newborns are unable to regulate their body temperature, and low temperatures can lead to life-debilitating illnesses. Skin-to-skin warming (kangaroo care) can maintain a healthy body temperature, but is not commonly practiced in resource-poor regions in India, where newborn hypothermia rates are high.

Paula Ribeiro of McGill University in Canada will develop a simple diagnostic test for schistosomiasis, which is caused by parasitic worms, based on microRNAs. Current diagnostics suffer from lack of sensitivity or an inability to distinguish current from past infections. They will evaluate parasite microRNAs contained within small extracellular vesicles (exosomes) as infection biomarkers by first isolating and sequencing them from infected mice.

Judy Sakanari of the University of California, San Francisco, and Manu Prakash from Stanford University in the U.S. will develop a cheap electromagnetic detection device to non-invasively assess the viability of parasitic nematode worms in infected patients to guide treatment duration. Current methods of detecting viable worms in nodules or the lymphatic system are invasive or expensive.