Health Diagnostics

Stephen Trowell from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Australia will develop a highly sensitive low-cost and low-invasive diagnostic test for malaria that detects volatile chemicals in exhaled breath. Malaria is one of the most severe infectious diseases affecting hundreds of millions of people per year. Although several diagnostic tests are available they are relatively complex and expensive suffer from limited sensitivity and all require a sample of blood.

Phillip Tarr of Washington University in the U.S. is developing a method to evaluate gut permeability by measuring levels of ingested fluorescent molecules non-invasively through the skin. Gut permeability is increased in infants with environmental enteropathy, which is associated with impaired growth and development, and is prevalent in developing countries. Current tests are problematic due to the required collection and handling of body fluids from young children, and can produce varying results.

Nils Pilotte and Steven Williams of Smith College in the U.S. along with Lisa Reimer at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom are developing a simple and inexpensive approach to monitor diseases caused by parasites that thrive in mosquitos based on detection in mosquito feces. Current approaches for disease surveillance are expensive, insensitive, or labor intensive, and are generally unsuitable for the areas in which they are needed most, including where disease incidence has decreased.

Hossam Haick of Technion - Israel Institute of Technology in Israel is developing a sensing plaster that can be stuck on the chest to detect volatile biomarkers emitted through the skin for self-diagnosis of tuberculosis even at early stages. The presence of tuberculosis will be signaled by colored LEDs. In Phase I, they evaluated different materials and selected non-toxic nanomaterial-based sensors. They also performed a study of healthy people and tuberculosis patients and identified several candidate volatile compounds that could be detected by the sensors.

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.

Larry Rand and colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco in the U.S. will develop a vaginal diaphragm to detect changes in cervical collagen and wirelessly alert health providers before preterm labor begins. This device would identify a new pre-labor “window” during which intervention could reduce mortality and disability resulting from pre-term birth among at-risk pregnant women.

Guiying Nie and colleagues of Prince Henry's Institute of Medical Research in Australia will test the utility of measuring blood levels of the HtrA3 protein for the early diagnosis of preeclampsia, which is a serious disorder of human pregnancy. Early diagnosis would enable therapeutic intervention helping to avoid premature delivery and associated risks. In Phase I, they developed a high-throughput assay to detect HtrA3 levels in the blood, and evaluated its ability to identify pregnancies at high risk of preeclampsia using a small number of samples.

Andrew Shennan and colleagues at Kings College London in the United Kingdom will field test in rural Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe a new blood pressure monitor which uses solar power and requires little training for its ability to increase detection rates and improve outcomes of women with preeclampsia in these communities. In Phase I they performed a feasibility study by introducing a selected and validated blood pressure monitor into low resource rural clinics in Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, and providing basic training.

Jennifer Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley in the U.S. test the ability of newly discovered RNA restriction enzymes to bind to specific RNA sequences inherent in a wide range of pathogens. If successful, this test could potentially be embedded on wickable paper to test human urine samples and produce a colormetric readout diagnostic like a pregnancy test.

Consuelo De Moraes, Mark Mescher and Andrew Read of Pennsylvania State University in the U.S. will test the theory that malaria infection induces characteristic odor cues, even in asymptomatic individuals. By identifying these chemical cues with gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, De Moraes will determine if there are biomarkers for diagnosis of infection.