Showing Grants 1 to 58 of 58
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| A Fortified School Meal Product to Deworm School Children |
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| Elijah Songok, Kenya Medical Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya - KE |
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Phase I
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Elijah Songok of the Kenya Medical Research Institute in Kenya will design and test a fortified school meal product with deworming properties for treating soil transmitted helminths (parasitic worms) among schoolchildren in developing countries. Schoolchildren are most at risk of infection-associated morbidities such as stunting and chronic dysentery. However, current mass drug administration strategies are associated with the development of drug resistance, and may not be sustainable long term. They will fortify cornflour with seed extracts of the tropical fruit, Carica papaya (pawpaw), which can significantly increase clearance of the parasite, and use it to make porridge, which is cheap and a common school meal snack in developing countries. They will test its efficacy in a randomized pilot study in six elementary schools in rural Kenya.
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| A Small Animal Model Of Onchocerciasis |
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| Joseph Turner, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, United Kingdom - GB |
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Phase I
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Joseph Turner of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom will develop the first small animal model of the parasitic disease onchocerciasis, also called river blindness, which is the second leading infectious cause of blindness. Treatment options for filarial infections are currently limited and lack effectivity. Thus, small animal models of filarial worm infections are invaluable both as a source of worms from all life cycle stages for in vitro drug screening, and for preclinical testing of candidate drugs. The mouse model will be generated by manipulation of immune responses mediating resistance to experimental infection. Onchocerca-susceptible mice will then be validated for testing new potentially curative treatments for onchocerciasis.
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| A Small Animal Model to Validate Onchocerca Macrofilaricides |
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| Warwick Grant, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia - AU |
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Phase I
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Warwick Grant of La Trobe University in Australia will develop a small animal parasite model to test candidate drugs for treating the parasitic nematode Onchocerca volvulus, which causes river blindness in humans. They will establish infection of the related parasite Cercopithifilaria johnstoni in rats and evaluate the pathology for similarity to the human disease. The model will then be validated for testing human anti-onchocercal drug candidates by analyzing the effect of drugs with proven success in patients. Once the model has been fully validated, they aim to perform routine assessments of candidate drugs.
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| Accurate, Accelerated, and Affordable Kit to predict Preterm Birth and Postpartum Recovery |
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| Ashish Ganguly, CSIR-Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh, India - IN |
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Phase I
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Ashish Ganguly and colleagues from the CSIR-Institute of Microbial Technology in India will make an affordable paper-based diagnostic to quickly and precisely measure plasma gelsolin levels in expectant mothers to help predict premature delivery and postpartum recovery, thereby reducing new mother and child mortality rates. They will determine the value of plasma gelsolin levels for predicting postpartum-related problems using patient sampling and an animal model of preterm birth. They will also develop the diagnostic by identifying a plasma gelsolin binding peptide that will be used to coat an optimized paper strip, along with a cell phone based read-out to enable remote analysis by a centralized unit.
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| BeHere-BeThere Project |
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| Christoph Nann, Serviceplan, Hamburg, Germany - DE |
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Phase I
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Christoph Nann of Serviceplan in Germany will test a simple and modern method for generating donations to developing countries. They will use location-based network applications such as Foursquare, which has over 25 million users who record their locations in cafés, shops and restaurants. By setting up collaborations with local retail partners in Berlin, they will label their stores on Foursquare with charity projects in Sierra Leone, such as building water pumps, to promote visitors to the stores. Once an organization has been found that can handle the donations, they will launch the locations on a website. When a Foursquare user visits one of the project-labeled stores it will trigger an automatic donation of an agreed amount from the store to that project. The aim is to spread the approach to other cities.
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| Cause Generation: A Platform to Define a Generation's Cause |
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| Tony Morain, Ogilvy, San Francisco, CA, United States - US |
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Phase I
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Tony Morain of Ogilvy in the U.S. will develop and launch an online platform for university student teams to campaign for their chosen development challenges. The platform will allow the teams to generate a “profile page” and develop a strategy for communicating success with the aid of proven communication tools and access to relevant resources, including case studies of effective communication strategies. Team voting will be used to select a winning campaign to support, which will be provided with funding. The aim is to empower young people with the ability to identify the major development challenges of their generation, and educate them to communicate the effectiveness of aid.
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| Cheap Yeast-Based Efficient Screens For Antifilarial Drugs |
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| Stephen Oliver, The University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom - GB |
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Phase I
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Stephen Oliver and Elizabeth Bilsland at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom will develop a yeast-based screen to identify compounds inhibiting selected enzymes from parasitic filarial worms, which cause several common and debilitating diseases. Candidate enzymes as potential antifilarial drug targets will be selected based on their importance specifically in the adult stages of the parasite life cycle, against which current drugs are ineffective. Yeast strains will be modified to produce these candidate enzymes and used in medium-throughput screens with the freely-available Malaria Box of compounds, which are active against the malaria parasite. This approach is cheaper and easier than current screening methods, and should identify compounds that are highly specific for adult filarial worms.
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| Chimeric Nematode Models for Anthelmintic Discovery |
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| Richard Komuniecki, The University of Toledo, Toledo, OH, United States - US |
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Phase I
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Richard Komuniecki of The University of Toledo in the U.S. will develop a high-throughput screening platform to identify novel drug targets for treating parasitic nematode (worm) infections, which cause significant morbidity in developing countries. Current drugs are ineffective against some parasitic species, and other species are becoming resistant, thus there is an urgent need for alternative approaches. However, high-throughput drug screens have been challenging because most parasitic nematodes cannot be cultured in the laboratory. To bypass this, they will create chimeric nematodes by introducing key neuronal drug targets from parasitic nematodes into the free-living model nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans. This adapted model will then be used to develop a screening assay for identifying compounds with anti-parasitic activity. This approach could also be applied to any other existing or proposed drug targets.
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| Dawadawa Therapy For Intestinal Helminthic Infections |
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| Michael Chan, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China - CN |
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Phase I
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Michael K. Chan of the Chinese University of Hong Kong in China and his collaborators will use dawadawa, a staple food in western Africa, as the basis of a novel therapeutic for treating and preventing multiple parasitic worm (helminthic) infections, which are prevelant in developing countries. Dawadawa can be produced by fermenting soyabeans with Bacillus bacteria. By engineering Bacillusto produce parasite-killing (antihelminth) proteins, they can make a staple food with therapeutic properties at low cost. The antihelminth proteins will be encapsulated within crystals that both protects them from degradation in the human gut as well as incorporating a chemical trigger for targeting release in the intestine, where most of the parasites reside.
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| Delivery of New Drugs Into Parasitic Nematodes |
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| Stephen Miller, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worchester, MA, United States - US |
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Phase I
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Stephen Miller and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in the U.S. will identify and characterize molecular features that can easily penetrate roundworms (nematodes), which commonly infect humans and can cause disability and death. Current treatment options are limited and toxic, and are losing efficacy due to the development of resistance mechanisms that can prevent the drug from entering the worm. Once molecular features that enhance entry are identified, they will be tested for their ability to promote delivery of a drug they have developed, which is predicted to inhibit the nematode’s nervous system, as a potentially effective new treatment.
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| Designing an Agricultural Implement Microfranchise for Women |
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| Patrice Martin, IDEO.org, San Francisco, CA, United States - US |
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Phase I
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Patrice Martin of IDEO.org in the U.S. and Devi Prasad Rao from the Arohana Seva Foundation in India will design and prototype a microfranchise system to rent small and mid-sized time-saving agricultural implements for Indian women smallholder farmers to improve their productivity and incomes. The system will be tailored to meet the unique needs of women smallholder farmers, and incorporate financing, training, and equipment maintenance. They will purchase and develop crop-specific prototype kits, including selected equipment and training materials, and lease them to local entrepreneurs who will be trained and supported to launch the microfranchise to rent out the kits.
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| Evolutionary Learning Laboratory for Labor Saving Innovation |
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| Ockie Bosch, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia - AU |
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Phase I
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Ockie Bosch and his team at the University of Adelaide in Australia will create a virtual Evolutionary Learning Laboratory (ELLab) to identify sustainable labor-saving innovations in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The ELLab is a systems approach designed to incorporate thinking from all relevant groups, such as the farmers, policy makers, and tool developers, in order to define useful, practical, and broadly applicable solutions. They will conduct interviews and run workshops to promote a shared understanding of the needs and viewpoints on labor-saving strategies of the different groups, and build their capacity for thinking more holistically. Proposed solutions, such as new tools, strategies, and policies will undergo a cyclical process of discussions and problem solving, leading to the evolution of more effective labor-saving solutions.
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| Farmer-Led 3D Prototyping for New Labor Saving Agri-Tools |
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| Charles Spillane, National University of Ireland Galway, Galway, Ireland - IE |
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Phase I
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Charles Spillane, Paul Wagtaff, and Una Murray of the National University of Ireland, Galway, in Ireland will lead a team in working to enable women smallholder farmers in Tanzania to design and develop their own labor-saving agricultural tools. They will work with six women farmer groups to identify agricultural and food processing tasks that require the highest labor demands, and assist them with designing improved tools. The top designs will then be scanned with a 3D camera and printed as plastic prototypes using low-cost printers. After testing and refinement, a selection will be manufactured by local toolmakers and promoted to the community with a view to scaling up manufacturing for commercial production and dissemination.
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| Foodborne Disease Treatments |
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| Aaron Maule, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, United Kingdom - GB |
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Phase I
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Aaron Maule of Queen’s University Belfast in the United Kingdom will develop food crops expressing microRNAs that, upon ingestion by humans, can be used to target and kill parasitic worms and the mosquitos that transmit them. Plant microRNAs can survive the digestion process and are detected in human blood following consumption. Therefore, they may also be encountered by blood-borne parasitic worms and by the blood-eating insects that transmit them, which cause widespread disease. He will select candidate microRNAs and test their activity using rodent infection models. The most effective microRNAs will be tested for toxicity to human cells, and will be used to engineer transgenic plants to analyze efficacy upon ingestion in rodents.
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| Hactivating Development Aid |
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| Charlotte Obidairo, Coxswain Social Investment plus, Tunis, Tunisia - TN |
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Phase I
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Charlotte Obidairo and team from Coxswain Social Investment plus (CSI+) of Tunisia will develop an open digital platform that uses crowdsourcing to solicit or offer solutions to development challenges from young people around the world. They will repurpose digital platforms such as Facebook and YouTube to present inspiring community-based success stories in multimedia format. In a pilot test, they will identify 10-15 authors from developing countries who will make short films of development challenges that they face, which will be outsourced to grade 7 students in 100 participating schools across Europe, the U.S., and Asia. They will evaluate the impact of the work to inform revisions and promote its expansion on a global scale.
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| Hand-Operated Seed Cleaner for Ugandan Women Farmer Groups |
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| Margaret Smith, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, United States - US |
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Phase I
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Margaret Smith and colleagues at Iowa State University in the U.S. will evaluate a simple, portable, hand-operated seed cleaner using 320 women farmers in Uganda. Current practices are physically demanding, time consuming, and reduce the quality of the grain. They will refine the design of the seed cleaner using input from the target farmers to produce a second-generation device for local manufacturing. It will then be tested with several legume crops for durability, ease of transport, and affordability for groups of smallholder women farmers.
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| Hand-Powered Millet Processing Suite Viability |
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| Bert Rivers, Compatible Technology International, St. Paul, MN, United States - US |
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Phase I
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Bert Rivers and colleagues of Compatible Technology International in the U.S. will test whether a recently developed suite of four manually-operated processing devices of pearl millet, which is a major food source in West Africa, is quicker and improves quality and yield compared to traditional methods. This will initially be analyzed in a test site in Senegal or Mali or both, and they will also explore local financing and manufacturing potential for more widespread distribution.
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| HMKD (humankind) |
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| Eric King, Leo Burnett, Chicago, IL, United States - US |
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Phase I
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Eric King and colleagues from Leo Burnett in the U.S. will create a working stock ticker on the New York Stock Exchange that will track the daily performance of aid to publicize that investment in humankind (HMKD; i.e. aid) is working. They will work to list HMKD on the New York Stock Exchange and create a news site containing daily updates of activities, such as where new wells have been dug. They will also present data on the type and distribution of aid, and on the return, such as changes in literacy rates and disease control. By daily presenting aid in investment terms on a global stage, they hope to better highlight its success to a wider audience.
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| House Parties: Experiential Marketing for Global Aid |
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| Chip Carter, Plan International USA, Washington, DC, United States - US |
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Phase I
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Chip Carter and colleagues of Plan International USA in the U.S. will evaluate a proven marketing model, the House Party, as a new distribution mechanism to enhance participation in international development causes. Supporters of child-focused international programs have been recruited in the U.S. to host house parties that use literature, short films, and other materials to directly engage and educate a broader network of long-term supporters. They will measure and document the effectiveness of this approach and its potential for replication at scale.
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| Improved Lighter and Long-Handle Hoes For Women |
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| Ton Rulkens, Oxfam Solidarité, Brussels, Belgium - BE |
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Phase I
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Ton Rulkens and his team from Oxfam-Solidarité in Belgium will bring together women smallholder farmers, local blacksmiths, and scientists in a participatory approach to design labor-saving hoes for tilling and weeding in Northern Mozambique. Successful and widespread implementation of labor-saving tools has proven difficult to achieve partly due to a lack of consideration of local conditions. By taking into account women’s preferences, accessibility constraints, social systems, and cultural beliefs, they will design improved hoe samples that should be more readily adopted. The top designs will be produced and tested, with the aim to scale-up testing for broader application.
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| Improving the Livelihood Of Women Smallholder Farmers |
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| Tomás Chiconela, Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo, Mozambique - MZ |
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Phase I
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Tomás Chiconela of Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique will help improve rice production in women-run smallholder farms by establishing ducks and azolla plants as environmentally friendly alternatives to fertilizers, insecticides, and herbicides. The ducks protect crops from pests and control weed growth, which saves time and energy needed for hand weeding as well as providing meat and eggs to boost protein consumption, and azolla is a proven biofertilizer that acts as a potent organic nitrogen source. Farmers will be trained to handle the livestock and implement the new technology, and livestock disease clinics will be established.
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| In Vitro Culture of Filariae |
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| Edward Mitre, Uniformed Services University, Rockville, MD, United States - US |
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Phase I
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Edward Mitre and his team at the Uniformed Services University in the U.S. will develop a method for the long-term maintenance of parasitic roundworms (filariae) in cell-free culture. Human filariae cause substantial morbidity worldwide, but current therapies are inefficient or cause harmful side effects. Additionally, the inability to maintain filariae in vitro has hampered screening efforts to identify new drugs. They will determine whether factors secreted by human endothelial cells can prolong the in vitro cell-free survival specifically of adult filariae, which are resistant to some treatments and therefore attractive targets for new therapies.
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| Increasing Productivity for and by Women Smallholder Farmers |
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| Alice Irene Whittaker-Cumming, African Women Education and Development Forum, Woodbridge, VA, United States - US |
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Phase I
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Alice Irene Whittaker-Cumming and Veronica Kette of Mother Nature Partnership and the African Women Education and Development Forum in the U.S. will provide innovative reusable menstrual cups and related education to women smallholder farmers. Current cultural taboos inhibit women from farming while menstruating, substantially reducing productivity. Building on a successful pilot project, they will scale-up testing to 5,000 women smallholder farmers in rural Cameroon to evaluate the impact on productivity and behavior. Local health professionals will be recruited to support the project, and educational workshops will be hosted for participants. Radio will also be used to enhance awareness.
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| Inhibitors of tRNA-Synthetases as Antimalarials |
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| Ralph Mazitschek, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, United States - US |
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Phase I
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Ralph Mazitschek of the Massachusetts General Hospital in the U.S. will explore whether inhibitors of tRNA-synthetases, which are enzymes that are essential for survival of the malaria parasite, are effective antimalarial drugs. New classes of drugs that work in different ways are urgently needed because current antimalarials can induce clinical resistance rendering them ineffective. Once they have developed an assay to measure tRNA-synthetase inhibition, it will be used to screen a compound library including the 400 antimalarial compounds in the so-called Malaria Box collection to identify selective inhibitors for further testing.
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| Innovative 3D In Vitro Culturing System for Filarial Worms |
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| Sara Lustigman, New York Blood Center, New York, NY, United States - US |
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Phase I
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Sara Lustigman of the New York Blood Center in the U.S. will develop a three-dimensional in vitro culturing system to support the development of infective larvae of parasitic filarial worms through to adulthood. Currently adult filarial worms can only be isolated in limited numbers from infected humans or animals, which precludes high throughput drug screening. The team will build three-dimensional cultures by testing different synthetic scaffolds with defined cell types in order to more closely mimic the human lymphatic vessels and nodules where these parasites normally reside, thereby encouraging their long-term growth. This will provide the greater numbers needed to screen for drugs that specifically kill adult worms, which are needed to eliminate this common and debilitating group of diseases.
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| Interrogating AntiMalarials Using Optogenetics Technology |
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| Choukri Ben Mamoun, Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States - US |
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Phase I
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Choukri Ben Mamoun of Yale University in the U.S. will employ optogenetics technology to identify antimalarial compounds in the so-called Malaria Box collection that specifically target membrane biogenesis in the parasite Plasmodium falciparum, which transmits the disease. Compounds targeting membrane biogenesis are known to inhibit both infection and transmission, as well as potently inhibiting drug-resistant parasites, which are becoming increasingly common. The optogenetics approach involves genetically engineering parasites to carry lipid biosensors composed of a fluorescent protein that can bind to a specific membrane phospholipid. Levels of phospholipids can then be monitored and quantified in the presence of a drug to identify those that affect membrane biogenesis.
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| Liver-Stage Antimalarials to Drive Sterile Immunity |
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| Kirsten Hanson, Instituto de Medicina Molecular, Lisboa, Portugal - PT |
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Phase I
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Kirsten Hanson and colleagues from the Instituto de Medicina Molecular in Portugal have developed a liver-stage screening strategy that they will use to screen for compounds that specifically block the final maturation stage of the Plasmodium parasites, which cause malaria. Identifying drugs that specifically kill liver-stage parasites will both prevent the establishment of the disease in the host, and block transmission. In addition, it has been speculated that high levels of liver-stage parasites in humans could cause complete (i.e., sterile) immunity. Therefore, identified drugs could also induce long-lasting protection against malaria, equivalent to a vaccine, which is of particular importance given there are currently no clinically approved malaria vaccines available.
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| Local Multi-Crop Thresher to Improve Productivity for All |
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| Jodie Wu, GCS Tanzania Limited, Arusha, Tanzania, United Republic of - TZ |
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Phase I
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Jodie Wu of Global Cycle Solutions in Tanzania will evaluate an affordable hand-powered multi-crop thresher to enable smallholder farmers to thresh a variety of crops in a fast and modular way. The thresher significantly increases productivity, works without electricity, and is portable, thereby reducing costs to the individual farmer. It is easy to manufacture from cheap and available parts, and is thus easy to maintain. A prototype, designed in collaboration with local farmers, has already been successfully tested. This has been refined in the laboratory, and they will now field test the final prototype in Tanzania with 25 multi-crop farmers to evaluate capacity and perform engineering adjustments. They will also explore local manufacturability and dissemination strategies, with the aim to expand to other countries.
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| Locally Produced Drip Irrigation Tubing from Recycled Waste |
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| Joseph Parse, Synovision Solutions, LLC, Burke, VA, United States - US |
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Phase I
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Joseph Parse of Synovision Solutions in the U.S. will develop equipment to convert waste plastic shopping bags into drip irrigation tubing suitable for use by women smallholder farmers in developing countries. In arid regions where water is in short supply, carrying or pumping water for irrigation on smallholder farms is time-consuming and inefficient. These regions tend to also have lots of consumer waste, including plastic shopping bags. He will refine and evaluate a low-tech manually powered heat-welding system, which could be locally produced, for converting plastic bags into large quantities of irrigation tubing, and design and develop associated materials for harvesting water from available reservoirs.
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| Locally Produced, Labor Saving Groundnut Sheller Promotion |
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| Setegn Gebeyehu, Oxfam America, Boston, MA, United States - US |
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Phase I
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Setegn Gebeyehu of Oxfam America in the U.S. will work with Ethiopian women farmers, the private sector, and the Ethiopian Agricultural Extension System to develop and provide wooden groundnut shellers with substantial labor-saving and economic benefits. By involving all relevant parties in the design and testing process, they aim to develop low-cost, durable shellers that can be locally produced and maintained. This should promote widespread adoption, which has been a barrier to success for other labor-saving devices.
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| Lymphatic on a Chip as a Model Host for Lymphatic Filariasis Parasites |
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| J. Brandon Dixon, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, United States - US |
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Phase I
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J. Brandon Dixon of the Georgia Institute of Technology in the U.S. will develop a scalable, microfluidic-based model of a human lymphatic vessel to support adult-stage lymphatic filariasis (LF) parasites in vitro. LF parasites cause a range of diseases for which treatment options are limited. By recreating the host environment where the parasites normally reside they can keep them alive for longer periods of time, which is required for developing urgently needed new drugs. They will also integrate an optical platform for quantifying parasite viability to provide a real-time readout, and use it to test the efficacy of candidate drugs within a relevant physiological context.
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| Malaria Box Target and Mechanism Characterization |
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| Gregory Goldgof, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States - US |
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Phase I
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Gregory Goldgof and colleagues from the University of California, San Diego in the U.S. have developed a modified yeast strain that they will use to classify the 400 next-generation anti-malarial drug candidates in the Malaria Box. The yeast display enhanced sensitivity to drugs, and can be induced to rapidly develop drug resistance. By treating these yeasts with the anti-malarial drug candidates they will determine their activity, and identify resistance mechanisms. This will enable the design of effective combinations of next-generation anti-malarials that can help to overcome the emerging challenges of global drug resistance.
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| Media Trust: Global360 |
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| Caroline Diehl, Media Trust, London, United Kingdom - GB |
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Phase I
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Caroline Diehl of Media Trust in the United Kingdom and her team will combine its existing television channel with media partnerships and creative young people to produce the first television, online and mobile channel run by young people to disseminate stories on development. A pilot model has been locally tested using established infrastructure and partnerships. They will form global partnerships for distribution, recruit managers, and build a small team of young reporters and filmmakers from the UK and one or more developing countries, and provide them with a unique platform to create, present, and distribute stories on local and global development.
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| MicroRNA Biomarkers for Parasite Macrofilariae |
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| Paul McVeigh, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, United Kingdom - GB |
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Phase I
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Paul McVeigh from Queen’s University of Belfast in the United Kingdom will develop a diagnostic for filarial infections, which are caused by parasitic nematodes (roundworms) and can cause severe pain and disability. He will screen serum samples from filariasis patients to identify circulating microRNAs associated with the presence specifically of adult parasitic nematodes (macrofilariae) as candidate diagnostic biomarkers. As macrofilariae commonly evade existing diagnostics and are resistant to some treatments, this approach could substantially improve elimination efforts of this highly prevalent disease.
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| Mobilizing the Unheard Voices of Aid Recipients |
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| Arjun Venkatraman, Environics Trust, New Delhi, India - IN |
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Phase I
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Arjun Venkatraman of Environics Trust in India and colleagues will use an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system to collect 10,000 personal narratives of the impact of aid programs in rural India. The system will be developed to record a brief audio phone message from low-literate citizens who have benefited from the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which guarantees employment to any citizen who seeks it. They will train a team of moderators to solicit contributors, who will receive a nominal fee, and to review and cross-check contributions. Validated stories will be disseminated along with geographic location using the web and social media. The impact of this project on how young people perceive foreign aid will also be assessed. If successful, this approach could be broadened to other types of foreign aid programs and to other countries.
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| Neobreathe |
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| Avijit Bansal, Windmill Health Technologies, New Delhi, India - IN |
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Phase I
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Avijit Bansal and Ayesha Chaudhary of Windmill Health Technologies in India will develop an easy-to-use device to enable front-line health workers to more successfully resuscitate newborns. The current bag and mask device is inefficient and requires two trained personnel who are often not available. They have designed a foot operated manual resuscitator that also reports real-time performance, and requires only one trained operator. They will measure performance parameters of the prototype to generate evidence to support progress into clinical trials.
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| Neurophysiology-Based Platform for Soil-Transmitted Helminth Drug Discovery |
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| Janis Weeks, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, United States - US |
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Phase I
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Janis Weeks and Shawn Lockery of the University of Oregon and NemaMetrix in the U.S. have developed a drug discovery platform that they will tailor to identify new drugs for treating soil-transmitted helminthic (STH) infections, which are caused by parasitic nematodes (worms). STH infections are the most common human infection, causing pain, disability, and even death. However, current treatments are inadequate and due to technological barriers there are no new drugs on the horizon. This new platform integrates microfluidics and electrophysiological methods to record electrical signals in parasitic nematodes. This technology provides the first semi-automated, medium-throughput platform for identifying new drugs that kill worms by disrupting neuromuscular function.
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| No-Till Rotary Punch Planter For Women |
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| August Basson, KEL Growing Nations Trust, Mohale's Hoek, Lesotho - LS |
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Phase I
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August Basson of the KEL Growing Nations Trust in Lesotho and collaborator Adriaan Jacobs will develop a time-saving seed planter adapted for use by small-scale women farmers planting maize and other grain crops. No-till planters reduce soil disturbance in order to promote conservation agriculture and improve productivity, but current models were designed for commercial use and down-scaled, making them inefficient and impractical for use by women. They will engineer an adapted rotary punch planter and distribute them for testing in the field.
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| Participatory Neglected Tropical Disease Detection and Response System |
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| Bebe Sylla, American Friends of Guinea, Houston, TX, United States - US |
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Phase I
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Bebe Sylla and a team at American Friends of Guinea in the U.S. will use Short Message Service (SMS) and mobile laboratory technologies in rural Guinea to improve the identification of and response to neglected tropical diseases. Rapid and accurate response to the emergence of parasitic infections is critical for reducing transmission cycles, but particularly difficult in rural areas. They will introduce a community-based surveillance system where residents are taught how to recognize symptoms of several prevalent parasite infections, and how to report them to a mobile laboratory using SMS. The mobile laboratory is an all-terrain vehicle carrying necessary laboratory equipment that can mediate between the rural community and hospitals and health clinics to improve diagnosis and treatment.
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| Pay As You Go Biogas: Labor Saving and Affordable for Women |
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| Kyle Schutter, Schutter Energy Ltd., Nairobi, Kenya - KE |
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Phase I
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Kyle Schutter of Takamoto Biogas in Kenya is developing an affordable and reliable ‘pay as you go’ model to provide a biogas system to women farmers in Kenya. Biogas is a cheaper alternative to traditional fuels, which also take time to collect and utilize, and the biogas system also generates biofertilizer that can increase crop yields by up to 100 percent.
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| Piloting Sustainable Mechanisms for Fuel Efficient Stoves |
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| John Gilliland, Vita, Dublin, Ireland - IE |
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Phase I
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John Gilliland of Vita in Ireland will develop a sustainable financial and social model to implement more efficient cooking stoves in Ethiopia. The stoves, pioneered in Eritrea, substantially reduce timber usage, thereby saving operation time and costs. They will analyze the feasibility of microfinancing as a means of payment, and the logistics of training women in the community to build the stoves, thereby ensuring their longevity. The stoves will be distributed to a selected zone in Ethiopia where they will be evaluated for economic, social, and environmental impact.
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| Profiling Anti-Malarials for Loss of Efficacy in Endemic Regions |
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| Sangeeta Bhatia, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, United States - US |
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Phase I
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Sangeeta Bhatia of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the U.S. will analyze the 400 compounds with antimalarial activity in the Malaria Box to identify those that might inhibit the efficacy of drugs used to treat HIV and tuberculosis (TB) when administered to the same person. They will use their in vitro human microliver model, which consists of organized liver and stromal cells, in a low-cost, scalable and high-throughput assay to determine the effect of the antimalarial compounds on the expression of a broad panel of human metabolizing enzymes. These data will help to predict drug performances of anti-malarials, anti-HIV, and anti-TB regimens and prioritize the development of drug candidates.
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| Programmed Killing of Parasite Eggs by Probiotic Organisms |
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| Tae Seok Moon, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, United States - US |
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Phase I
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Tae Seok Moon from Washington University in the U.S. will develop a bacterial-based strategy to block the transmission of soil-transmitted helminth infections (intestinal worms), which occurs via parasite eggs present in human feces. They will engineer consumable probiotic bacteria that are designed to sense when they are excreted from the body and to subsequently release toxic substances designed to kill the parasite eggs in order to prevent disease transmission.
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| Radio8 |
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| Mark Bashore, Digital Kitchen, Seattle, WA, United States - US |
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Phase I
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Mark Bashore and his team from Digital Kitchen in the U.S. will create a worldwide radio channel for children aged 8 to provide knowledge, insights and perspectives on aid, and promote connections between the developing and the developed world. By focusing their approach on the young population, they hope in time to transform the “have and have not” concept of aid. The channel will broadcast aid-related first person stories, music, and cultural exchanges. Radio remains the dominant media in the developing world, and radios are cheap and durable. They will analyze possibilities for the manufacture and distribution of cheap radios, and develop and assess the feasibility of the proposal, and test it with children in the US, Europe, and developing countries.
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| Rapid, Low-Cost, Point-of-Care Diagnosis of Loa loa Microfilaremia by Handheld Fluorescence Photodetection |
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| Jason Andrews, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, United States - US |
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Phase I
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Jason Andrews and colleagues from Massachusetts General Hospital in the U.S. have developed a low-cost handheld device that allows rapid and quantitative detection of Loa loa helminthic parasites in the bloodstream by fluorescent photometry. Quantitative detection is important because individuals with high levels of Loa loa can be fatally sensitive to a widely administered drug used to treat another common parasitic worm Onchocerca volvulans. Conventional detection by microscopy is labor-intensive, time-consuming, and often impractical in the field. They will calibrate the device, and then conduct a pilot study at an established field site.
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| Reducing Women’s Labor In Parboiled Rice Transformation |
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| Karime Séré, Fundación Intermon Oxfam, Barcelona, Spain - ES |
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Phase I
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Karime Séré of Intermon Oxfam of Spain, in collaboration with the National Research Institute for Technology and Science in Burkina Faso, will develop more efficient and durable rice husk furnaces and lower-cost rice sorting equipment to reduce the labor intensity of parboiled rice production, the principal livelihood activity of 18,000 Burkinabe women. Rice husk furnaces significantly reduce the time burden of collecting firewood by utilizing rice hulls as a readily available substitute fuel, and also reduce cooking time of rice by around half. Low-cost prototypes will be developed and then distributed to women rice workers via rice transformation centers in Burkina to evaluate their performance over one year with a view to scaling up to other countries.
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| Rural Mobility and Agro-Products Collection Centers |
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| Richard Seshie, Vivus Ltd., Accra, Ghana - GH |
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Phase I
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Richard Seshie of Vivus Ltd. in Ghana will establish an infrastructure to provide cargo motorbikes to rural women farmers for labor-enduring activities such as the collection of crops, and to enable access to remote markets for selling produce. They will set-up mobility collection centers for provision and maintenance, and test on-demand pay-as-you-go versus group-ownership financing models in several villages. Once the most effective financing model has been identified, they aim to build a network of collection centers to provide affordable mobility options for smallholder farms nationwide.
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| Single Dose Cocktail Anti-Filarial Therapies Using AmPa |
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| Bryan Bellaire, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, United States - US |
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Phase I
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Bryan Bellaire of Iowa State University in the U.S. will improve the safety and efficacy of therapies for treating filarial diseases caused by parasitic nematodes (worms), which are common in developing countries. Current drugs targeting the parasites are becoming ineffective due to the development of resistance, and antibiotics targeting their resident endosymbiont bacteria Wolbachia, which is essential for parasite survival, require multiple dosing regimens that are hard to maintain. He will develop amphiphilic polyanhydride (AmPa) nanoparticles to encapsulate both the antibiotic doxycycline together with anti-parasitic drugs to form a stable, and more effective single dose therapeutic with slow drug release that is directed through the same organ system as the parasites. This will be tested for efficacy in infected rodent models with the aim of nearing pilot studies in humans.
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| Smart Cities: An Interactive Multi-Media and Mapping Platform |
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| Jamie Lundine, Spatial Collective, Nairobi, Kenya - KE |
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Phase I
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Jamie Lundine and a team from Spatial Collective in Kenya will promote communication between citizens, service providers, local government, and members of the international community, to help improve living conditions in developing countries. They will create an interactive community platform accessible via SMS for citizens to present local development challenges, such as water supply shortages, and suggest possible solutions. Service providers and potential donors can then use the multi-media platform to identify these needs, and develop and evaluate solutions. The platform will be pilot tested in Nairobi, Kenya.
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| Solar Grain Dryer |
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| Vaibhav Tidke, Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, India - IN |
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Phase I
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Vaibhav Tidke of the Institute of Chemical Technology in India will develop a mobile solar powered grain dryer to rapidly reduce the moisture content of grains, which extends storage life. Currently, women dry the harvested grains in the sun, which involves tilting and spreading at regular intervals for up to 45 days, taking up time that could be used for other farming tasks. Open sun drying also reduces quality and is less efficient, leading to significant loss of productivity. He has designed a wheel-loaded movable solar grain dryer that can reduce drying times to one day. There are no operating costs, and its mobility means it can be shared between farms thereby reducing capital cost. It is also low maintenance and can be locally fabricated.
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| Supporting Uptake of Time and Energy-Saving Technologies |
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| Michelle Winthrop, Farm Africa (Food & Agricultural Research Management), London, United Kingdom - GB |
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Phase I
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Michelle Winthrop of Farm Africa (Food & Agricultural Research Management) in the United Kingdom will lead a team of community development experts to support 300 women farmers in Ethiopia to access and use existing technologies such as weeders and seed drills that substantially reduce the labor intensity of growing maize and sorghum. There are many cultural and social barriers that have prevented widespread adoption of new technologies in these settings, particularly for women. To overcome these barriers, they will use a holistic approach, educating communities and local government to promote cultural and social acceptance of the technologies. They will also work with the women’s groups to support trial, use and financing, and with local small-medium enterprises for manufacturing and maintenance.
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| TB Nanodots: Transdermal Controlled Release of TB Drugs |
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| Rohit Srivastava, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Mumbai, India - IN |
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Phase I
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Rohit Srivastava and Aravind Kumar of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in India will develop a microneedle-based drug delivery system for the treatment of tuberculosis (TB). Current treatment involves frequent administration of combinations of toxic drugs, which often leads to non-compliance necessitating further complex treatments. They have designed a photo-thermosensitive nanocarrier based on liposomes that can release the drugs transdermally via microneedles upon exposure to sunlight or LED in a controlled manner, bypassing the need for multiple administrations and reducing toxic side effects. They will fabricate the microneedles, evaluate drug release dynamics using light, and test drug bioavailability in vivo using a small animal model.
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| The Development of Periphyton Biofilm Fertilizer |
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| Yonghong Wu, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, China - CN |
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Phase I
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Yonghong Wu of the Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences in China will develop and test a periphyton biofilm fertilizer in paddy fields in Southern China, as a cheaper and easier alternative to chemical fertilizer. Periphyton is a mixture of microorganisms that grow on submerged objects in water. It is environmentally benign, can store large quantities of nutrients, and inhibit weed growth, making it attractive as a fertilizer. By selecting the optimal substrate and microorganisms for testing, the periphyton biofilm fertilizer could improve rice productivity and save labor.
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| The Hand-Pulled Small Seeds Planter |
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| Alfred Alumai, Muni University, Arua, Uganda - UG |
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Phase I
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Alfred Alumai of Muni University in Uganda, along with Ronald Avutia and Yasin Angua of NilePro Trust, will evaluate the beneficial impacts of a small seeds planter for smallholder women farmers in Uganda. The tool facilitates row cultivation of millet, sorghum, and groundnuts, which saves time and labor associated with weeding and harvesting, and increases production and yield. It was developed with input from women smallholder farmers and has been successfully tested in a pilot study. They will now perform and evaluate full-scale field trials in northwestern Uganda with three women farmer groups over a six-month period. After subsequent tool refinement they will promote widespread adoption by conducting on-site demonstrations and workshops, and presentations via radio broadcasts.
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| Turning the Worm Against its Symbiont |
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| Denis Voronin, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, England, United Kingdom - GB |
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Phase I
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Denis Voronin of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom will identify new drugs for treating common and debilitating human parasitic diseases known as filariasis, which are caused by nematode worms, by specifically targeting their essential bacterial symbiont, Wolbachia. They will develop a screening strategy based on the model nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, and search for compounds that can induce an intracellular degradation mechanism known as autophagy to activate the parasite’s immune system and thereby eliminate the resident Wolbachia, which are essential for parasite survival. This alternative approach should dramatically reduce the time needed to treat lymphatic filariasis compared to current antibiotic-based treatments, which directly targetWolbachia, require long-term administration, and can lead to the development of resistance.
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| Ultra-Low-Cost Loa Loa Paper Diagnostic Device |
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| Andrew Steckl, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, United States - US |
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Phase I
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Andrew Steckl and Giovanni Pauletti of the University of Cincinnati in the U.S. will develop a paper-based urine test for the rapid non-invasive detection of the filarial roundworm Loa loa, which causes the painful skin and eye disease loaisis, commonly found in western and central Africa. Current diagnostic approaches are invasive, involving visual detection of larvae in tissue or blood samples. The approach here utilizes the potential effect of parasite-released hormones found in the urine of infected individuals on the viscosity of animal blood spotted onto filter paper. The diagnostic test will be easy to perform and is projected to be inexpensive to manufacture.
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| Virosomes Producing Virus-Like Particles in situ for Dengue Prophylaxis |
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| Vishwas Joshi, Seagull BioSolutions, Pune, India - IN |
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Phase I
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Vishwas Joshi and colleagues from Seagull BioSolutions in India will develop a vaccine against the dengue virus by engineering a defective version of the measles virus to express dengue virus proteins (a so-called virosome), which can induce protective immunity. There is currently no approved vaccine that protects against dengue infection, which causes disease in 50-100 million people annually, some of which are life threatening. They will test the efficacy of the virosomes to prevent dengue virus infection by using them to vaccinate mice and analyzing immunity upon viral exposure.
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| Widespread Monitoring of Soil-Transmitted Helminths |
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| Stephen Sowerby, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand - NZ |
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Phase I
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Stephen Sowerby of the University of Otago in New Zealand has developed a quantitative cell-phone-based diagnostic and will test its ability to detect and monitor soil-transmitted helminth infections (intestinal worms), which are the most common infections worldwide. Quantitative monitoring of infection is crucial for evaluating therapeutic agents to combat the increase in drug resistant parasites. The approach simplifies current diagnostic methods by processing stool samples so that they can be digitally imaged and transmitted via cell phone for remote diagnosis, and is therefore likely to be cheaper and more accessible to developing countries.
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