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Development of Low-Cost Clean-Tasting Protein Isolates Using Upcycled Agricultural By-Products
Amanda StilesRipple Foods, PBCBerkeley, California, United States
Next Generation Nutrition
Amanda Stiles of Ripple Foods, PBC, in the U.S. will produce a low-cost protein isolate upcycled from locally-sourced agricultural by-products that can be used as a nutritious food additive or standalone high-protein broth. Protein malnutrition is a major health concern in southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. However, protein is expensive to produce and often has a bad taste. They have developed an automated approach to identify low-cost, efficient methods to isolate plant proteins from agricultural by-products in the U.S. They will apply their approach to by-products from low-resource settings, such as wheat bran, and perform a high-throughput protein isolation screen to identify optimal extraction and purification protocols for yield and purity. The final products will be taste-tested to ensure they have a limited impact on flavor when used as food additives.
Deworming Reproductive Age Women for Helminth Elimination
Prasenjit MondalInternational Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, BangladeshDhaka, Bangladesh
Community-Based Interventions
Prasenjit Mondal of the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh will test whether supplying deworming medication to women of reproductive age reduces the incidence of helminth infections and associated anemia. Current mass drug administration efforts to eradicate parasitic infections are fairly successful but focus predominantly on school children. The incidence of infection in women of fertility age remains high, which affects both maternal and child health. To reach this vulnerable population, they will exploit the infrastructure of a current government program, which provides folic acid tablets to pregnant women via Community Clinics, by also providing deworming medication and associated counseling. They will evaluate their approach by measuring its effect on helminth infection levels.
DigiMat. Tracking Realtime Immunisation Data (DigiTrack)
Chibuzo OparaDrugStoc E Hub Ltd.Lagos, Nigeria
Chibuzo Opara of DrugStoc E Hub Ltd. in Nigeria will equip vaccine storage and transport sites with calibrated weighing mats (Digimats) that automatically transmit vaccine quantities in real time to better monitor delivery chains in the community and improve supply. Monitoring the movement of vaccines at the national and district level is currently performed by the Nigerian immunization program. However, accurate monitoring at the local level requires alternative, more automated approaches to avoid human error. They will calibrate their Digimats to recognize the weight of specific vaccines, and identify 20 sites across three states, including storage warehouses and trucks, where they will be positioned to automatically transmit data over a period of six months. These data will be collected by mobile tablets and interfaced with the national vaccine delivery dashboard to provide real-time stock counts and resupply alerts.
Dry-to-rainy Season Integrated Control of NTDs and Malaria
Brian FoyColorado State UniversityFort Collins, Colorado, United States
Brian Foy of Colorado State University in the U.S. will test whether repeated administration of the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin specifically during the short dry-to- rainy transition in Burkina Faso in combination with distribution of insecticide treated nets will better reduce the incidence of malaria, lymphatic filariasis and soil transmitted helminth infections. Incidence of these diseases remains high despite mass drug administration efforts. They hypothesize that drug treatment and preventative measures will be more effective during the dry-to-rainy season transition (June to October) when the vector and parasites are at relatively low levels. This will be tested by performing a pilot three month randomized trial on a selection of rural villages involving community health workers to administer the drugs, followed by evaluation of disease incidence in young children.
Durable and Sensitive Tough Hydrogel Condoms
Robert GorkinUniversity of WollongongWollongong, New South Wales, Australia
Next Generation Condom
Robert Gorkin of the University of Wollongong in Australia is developing tough hydrogels as an alternative material to latex for making male condoms with enhanced tactile (touch) sensitivity to improve sexual experience. Tough hydrogels are highly elastic and mechanically tough materials. Unlike latex, they can increase sensitivity to touch, incorporate lubrication, and be coupled to other components, such as stimulants and antiviral drugs. In Phase I, they synthesized candidate tough hydrogel formulations and showed that they had sufficient mechanical and barrier properties to be suitable condom materials, and could be manufactured to international safety standards. A preliminary trial of target users rated tough hydrogels nicer to touch than latex. In Phase II, they will tailor the condoms to the needs of specific communities by surveying target populations to identify desirable properties that will promote use. They will also optimize production and engineer prototypes for a user acceptance and performance trial to evaluate whether they enhance sexual experience.
Early Markers to Predict Cognition and Brain Development
Damien FairOregon Health and Science UniversityPortland, Oregon, United States
Brain Function/Gestational Age
Damien Fair of Oregon Health & Science University in the U.S. will determine whether combinations of prenatal and early postnatal stress markers can be used to predict the developmental trajectories of specific cognitive processes known as executive functions, which underlie goal-directed behavior and are important for many social and academic skills. They will use their maternal-infant macaque model to identify stress markers such as maternal nutrition, heart rate, and cortisol levels that correlate with the later development of specific behaviors in offspring, and with brain connectivity at different developmental stages as measured by magnetic resonance imaging. The identified brain imaging and stress markers will also be analyzed using their dataset derived from maternal-infant humans.
EarlySigns: A New Screening Tool for Neurodevelopment
Maitreyi MazumdarChildren's Hospital BostonBoston, Massachusetts, United States
Maitreyi Mazumdar of Boston Children's Hospital in the U.S. will use existing data from epidemiology studies in Bangladesh, Mexico City, and Oklahoma to develop a scoring system to identify children at high risk of developing cognitive impairments also beyond childhood. The data were derived from prospective studies of individuals across the prenatal, early childhood and adolescent time periods, and include anthropomorphic measurements, full scale IQ, and other clinical and nutritional data. They will sort through these measures to identify those that best predict the likelihood of cognitive impairment, and generate a simple scoring system that can be used on different populations and in low resource settings.
Edible Micro-Balloons for Nutrition Enhancement
Muthupandian AshokkumarUniversity of MelbourneMelbourne, Victoria, Australia
Muthupandian Ashokkumar at the University of Melbourne in Australia, along with Francesca Cavalieri, Meifang Zhou, and Srinvas Mettu, will produce edible microballoons made from protein that contain essential nutrients for adding to common foods to combat malnutrition in mothers and infants. Encapsulating the nutrients, rather than adding them directly to food, helps keep them stable and promotes their absorption in the body. It can also mask unpleasant tastes, and control the timing and location of nutrient release, which can increase their performance. They have developed a method that uses ultrasound waves to encapsulate oil- and water-soluble vitamins and minerals within edible shells made from a range of proteins including milk and pea proteins. They will analyze the stability and strength of microballoons made from different materials that contain the recommended daily doses of nutrients for mothers and infants. They will also develop methods to encapsulate water, which could be used to reduce the fat content of fat-rich products.
Electronic Decision Support System for Accurate Immunization
Ali TurabInteractive Research and Development Global LimitedSingapore, Singapore
Ali Turab of IRD Global Ltd. in Singapore will develop a decision support tool that can be integrated with digital immunization registries to automatically construct optimal appointment schedules for every child that can adjust for missed immunizations and the introduction of new vaccines. A large majority of children, in both developing and developed countries, are not immunized at the recommended times, which can increase the risk of severe diseases. When a vaccination is missed, it is left to the health care professional to work out the best alternative schedule, which is often inaccurate. To help with this, they will design software that incorporates a child's vaccination history and age to automatically construct a new immunization schedule after every appointment, and that can also identify opportunities to vaccinate children even when they are at a clinic for other reasons. The software will integrate with existing health systems in several developing countries. They will conduct a mixed methods study at the Indus Hospital Korangi Campus in Pakistan to validate their approach for generating optimal schedules and assess usability by health workers.
Empowering Communities to Control TB
Carlton EvansAsociación Benéfica PRISMALima, Peru
Carlton Evans of Asociacion Benefica PRISMA in Peru will use conditional cash incentives to encourage individuals in poor communities that have been newly diagnosed with tuberculosis to help identify neighboring tuberculosis sufferers and encourage them and their families to receive treatment. Effective treatments exist for most forms of tuberculosis, but reaching the poor and most vulnerable individuals has proven challenging. By incentivizing and educating recently diagnosed tuberculosis sufferers in these communities, they hope to stem the spread of the disease and bring treatments to those who were previously left untreated.