Product/Service Development

Silvia Maria Di Santi at the São Paulo State Department of Health in Brazil will integrate genomics techniques into their routine malaria surveillance program to genetically characterize the parasite populations and monitor transmission dynamics in gold mining regions. Gold mining is associated with deforestation, which expands breeding sites for malaria-transmitting mosquitoes, poor housing conditions, and illegal activities, which makes eliminating malaria in these regions more difficult.

Richard Bbaale of BanaPads Inc. in Uganda will recycle the discarded pseudo stems of banana plants to produce a non-toxic biopolymer and develop biodegradable sanitary pads for women and girls in underserved communities. Uganda produces roughly 10% of the world's bananas, which results in over 30 million tons per year of pseudo stem waste that is currently left to rot. They will extract the cellulose from the pseudo stem, which is the trunk of the banana plant that is cut off once the bananas have been picked, and use it to synthesize the biopolymer, carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC).

Naba Dutta of RMIT University in Australia will develop disposable sanitary pads from natural, biodegradable polymers and agricultural byproducts such as cellulose to decrease cost and waste production and improve safety. Disposable pads are generally made from synthetic superabsorbent material that is expensive, has a high carbon footprint and is associated with an increased risk of diseases such as pelvic inflammatory disease.

Wei Lu of the University of Michigan in the U.S. will develop a reusable sanitary pad from a highly hydrophobic material containing carbon nanofibers, which clot blood, and microfolds that trap it in small pockets on the surface and can be cleaned without water. Disposable pads are expensive and generate substantial waste, making reusable products more attractive in low- and middle-income countries. However, these all require washing with lots of clean water, which is often problematic.

Jennifer Edwards of Cardiff University in the United Kingdom will develop a low-cost material impregnated with a photo-active biocidal compound for producing reusable sanitary products that can be self-cleaned in the sun without the need for water or detergent. Many women and girls in low- and middle-income countries are unable to afford single-use sanitary pads or to properly clean reusable pads, which leads to many of them suffering from chronic infections.

Issiaka Soulama of Groupe de Recherche Action en Santé in Burkina Faso will build a molecular surveillance platform for monitoring the emergence and spread of different strains of the malaria-causing parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, including drug-resistant ones, to support the National Malaria Control Program and improve the control of malaria. They will develop a web-based platform so that when a person tests positive at one of the existing monitoring sites, they can quickly and easily record the location of the infection.

Moses Laman of the Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research will extend the national malaria surveillance platform, which maps infections across Papua New Guinea, to incorporate valuable genomic data of the malaria-causing parasites that can be used to better guide control and elimination efforts.

Jaishree Raman of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in South Africa will integrate a genomic surveillance platform with the existing routine malaria surveillance program to better identify the source of infections and monitor parasite spread within South and southern Africa. Eliminating malaria requires knowing whether new infections are imported from other countries or are caused by local outbreaks, because they require different intervention strategies.

Yilan Ye from Tsinghua University in China will develop a small, self-adhesive menstrual product based on the suction cups of octopuses that can be fixed securely but reversibly inside the vaginal opening to block the flow of blood and enable its convenient disposal. They will design it specifically for women and girls in low- and middle-income countries by ensuring it is low-cost, re-usable, safe to apply, and does not require sanitation facilities.

David Hughes of Pennsylvania State University in the U.S. is leveraging real-time, high-resolution satellite imagery of smallholder farms along with artificial intelligence to automatically detect crop pests and diseases in Africa. In Phase I, together with Nita Bharti also of Penn State University in the U.S.