A device that measures someone’s unique response to a weak electric signal could let medical devices such as blood-pressure cuffs automatically identify the wearer and send measurements straight to his or her electronic medical record.
For now, nurses, patients, and doctors juggle the job of keeping patients’ identities straight. But computer scientist Cory Cornelius at Dartmouth College, in New Hampshire, has developed a wristwatch-like device that measures a person’s “bioimpedance” to identify him or her to medical monitoring devices.
Testing for HIV does not simply end with the diagnosis that the virus is present in a patient; caregivers also need to track the disease’s progress to adjust ongoing treatment. Yet tests for monitoring HIV infection require sophisticated instruments, well-trained clinicians and expensive lab ware. All those are in short supply on HIV’s front line in places such as rural sub-Saharan Africa. “It’s a problem not just of cost,” explains hematologist Helen Lee of the University of Cambridge in the UK. “It’s a problem of having access.” In the last year, stripped-down standalone tests have appeared on the market, offering rural patients a cheaper, faster count of their CD4 immune cells. And in the coming months, a class of tests that measure viral load should enter routine point-of-care use, too, offering caregivers a choice of simple tools for measuring HIV infections. Continue reading Point-of-care tests poised to alter course of HIV treatment→
Almost a decade ago, the US National Institutes of Health kicked off its Molecular Libraries Initiative to provide academic researchers with access to the high-throughput screening tools needed to identify new therapeutic compounds. Europe now seems keen on catching up.
Last month, the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), a €2 billion ($2.6 billion) Brussels-based partnership between the European Commission and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), invited proposals to build a molecular screening facility for drug discovery in Europe that will combine the inquisitiveness of academic scientists with industry know-how. The IMI’s call for tenders says the facility will counter “fragmentation” between these sectors. Continue reading Europe plans molecular screening center for translational research→
Insulating materials that could fit inside icepacks to transport and store vaccines more effectively are about to enter field trials in Vietnam.
The novel materials make use of the phase change — the point at which solids melt or liquids turn to solids — to keep the vaccines within a limited temperature range and prevent them from spoiling because of temperature variations.
If successful, the new vaccine carriers could be produced in India for use around the world, according to Shawn McGuire, an engineer at the global non-governmental organisation Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH). Continue reading Phase-changing materials in trial to preserve vaccines→
Journalist covering global development by way of science and technology.
