Tool/Machine

The primary objective of this project is to develop a device to screen for substandard anti-malarials and antibiotics, thereby improving adverse maternal and neonatal health outcomes with respect to malaria and sepsis. To date, there is no device to test counterfeit and substandard drugs in the field thoroughly. To this end, we propose PharmaCheck, a user-friendly, cost-effective, contextual and high-throughput device capable of quantitatively measuring active ingredient concentration and drug release profiles to quickly and accurately screen for spurious medicines.

We propose to scale up development and deploy in Rwandan community-level clinics a novel, low-cost, front-line diagnostic testing device that enables simultaneous detection of HIV and syphilis. This device requires just one finger-pricked volume of blood, and performs diagnostic testing that is as accurate as laboratory testing. Integrated into this diagnostic instrument is an GPRS mobile health capability which performs real-time synchronization of data to a central health records database using the cell-phone network or orbiting satellites.

Through a partnership between bioengineers at Rice University, pediatricians at the University of Malawi and Baylor College of Medicine, and industrial design engineers from 3rd Stone Design have designed a novel, rugged bubble Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (bCPAP) system which can be made in small volume at low-cost.

The specific aim of the proposed study is to test the safety and feasibility of a new low-cost device (Odon Device: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGLLXFzULd4) to deliver the fetus during the second stage of labor. This device may be potentially safer and easier to apply than forceps/vacuum extractor for assisted deliveries, and a safe alternative to some Caesarean sections in settings with limited surgical capacity and human resource constraints.

Erez Lieberman-Aiden and his team at Harvard University in the U.S. propose to develop a low-cost microbial fuel cell (MFC) to power cell phones in Africa. Certain naturally occurring soil microbes produce free electrons during the course of their ordinary metabolic processes, and MFCs will recharge themselves using power derived from these soil microbes. These fuel cells do not require any sophisticated materials to build, and can be easily assembled using locally available materials.

Coenraad Adema of the University of New Mexico in the U.S. will develop a device to attract, capture, and display a signal from the parasitic flatworm Schistosoma mansoni in order to determine transmission risks and support control efforts. Adema will confirm the reported attraction of the parasite larvae to particular chemicals (chemoattractants) and then analyze whether the subsequent release of parasite enzymes can induce a color change that can be quantitatively detected using a chromogenic substrate.

Tyler Radford of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team in the U.S. will develop an analytical tool to derive information relevant for malaria elimination efforts from OpenStreetMap, which is the largest crowd-sourced map of the world. OpenStreetMap contains information uploaded by volunteers and professionals on the location of features such as roads and health facilities. They will build plugins that enable users to analyze the distribution of malaria intervention strategies such as bed nets and health clinics, and identify regions that require more detailed mapping.

Fredrik Westerlund of Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden will develop a portable device for low-income settings based on a smartphone to identify antimicrobial resistance genes on bacterial plasmid DNA, which is a major source of antibiotic resistance. Plasmids are small pieces of circular DNA that are readily transferred between different bacteria. Current methods for characterizing them are costly and require sophisticated equipment.

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.

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.