The Washington Times discusses IIH’s work

The Washington Times, picking up on the TR35 2009 article, just reported on novel approaches to harness the creative potential of college students towards solving global challenges, such as the strategies employed by IIH.

Christopher Gergen and Gregg Vanourek write:

“A glance at the work of recent graduates reveals the possibilities. Since 1999, MIT’s Technology Review has selected innovators younger than 35 whose work is reshaping our world…………

Jose Gomez-Marquez, a native of Honduras, is working to develop low-cost, highly durable ways to deliver health care solutions into the developing world. Inspired by a call from the World Health Organization for new ways to deliver the measles vaccine, Mr. Gomez-Marquez organized a team and developed individual vaporizers preloaded with the vaccine. They also were able to stabilize the vaccine without cold storage – critical in a developing world context.

The invention won an award for International Technology at the MIT IDEAS Competition in 2006 (when Mr. Gomez-Marquez was 29) and recently received funding from the National Institutes of Health for further development. Mr. Gomez-Marquez has been hired by MIT to run the Innovations in International Health Program – a great opportunity to help inspire the next generation of innovators…….

MIT is not alone in cultivating such talent……….”

Jose Gomez-Marquez, receives the 2009 Humanitarian of the Year Award from Technology Review

Technology Review announced the 2009 TR35, the annual listing of the top young innovators from around the world. We are proud to say this impressive list of the creative world-changing innovators inludes IIH’s Jose Gomez-Marquez, who was additionally recognized by TR as “Humanitarian of the Year.”

José Gómez-Márquez’s lab at MIT seems to be part toy store, part machine shop, and part medical cente­r. Plastic toys are scattered across the bench tops, along with a disassembled drugstore pregnancy test, all manner of syringes, and a slew of fake body parts. Coffee filters have been transformed into paper-based diagnostics; a dime-store helicopter provides the design for a new asthma inhaler; even a toilet plunger has been put to use, rigged with tubes and glue to form a makeshift centrifuge.

Visit TechnologyReview.com to read more and view a video of Jose demonstrating some of the medical technology he and his students are developing in D-Lab.

Dr. Jose Trevejo’s work on TB detection technologies features on Mass High Tech

Mass High Tech recently profiles Dr. Jose Trevejo’s work on breath-based tuberculosis detection.

Trevejo, a principal scientist at the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Inc. in Cambridge, is looking for a new and better way to screen for the disease. His handheld device, which is at least five years away from approval, would detect the “smell” of the gases, called metabolites, coming off the sputum of a patient. A dime-sized sensor would then determine whether the smell indicates tuberculosis.

The preliminary version of the device would require the patient to cough up a phlegm ball to be tested, and tests would take about 10 minutes. But Trevejo envisions a final product that would only require the patient to exhale — like a breathalyzer test for TB. The cost of the device at this stage is projected to be between $1,000 and $2,000, and each sample tested would cost about a dollar. The current test costs about $30 for each sample.

More at Mass High Tech

Launching MEDIK in Nicaragua

The Medical Education Design & Invention Kits (MEDIK) were launched this past weekend through an Innovations Workshop in Appropriate Biomedical Technology in Esteli, Nicaragua. The MEDIK modules are designed to demystify the process of various medical technologies through a series of hands-on activities.  Nurses, Doctors, and medical students met in Esteli, Nicaragua to learn the funcionality of the medical equipment that they use daily and also how to approach design challenges for repairing and adapting these same pieces of medical equipment.

The MEDIK modules taught in Esteli included Drug Delivery and Diagnostics. The IIH team presented the mechanics of an inhaler and a nebulizer and the chemistry of a lateral flow strip. Nurses, doctors, and medical students spent the morning brainstorming and collaborating to construct  prototypes of a nebulizer powered by a bike pedal pump, a lateral flow test strip that will send test results through a web cam and other innovative technologies using locally available material and their own knowledge of the mechanics of the medical equipment.

To educate more medical professionals on the art of innovating through the MEDIK modules, the IIH team including, Jose Gomez-Marquez, Lisa Schlecht, and Anna Young, will be teaching a semester-course on Innovations in Appropriate Biomedical Technology this fall at the Center for Investigation and Health Education in Managua, Nicaragua.

For more information about the development and implementation of the MEDIK modules and other projects happening in HLab Managua, visit the IIH Managua blog!

Salud del Sol, Inc. on the cover of Brass Magazine

“Students Saving Lives With Sustainable Technology”

Salud del Sol, Inc. and Lori Hanna are featured on the August 2009 cover of Brass Magazine. Salud del Sol, Inc., is a social enterprise focused on researching and implementing solutions to global health issues in underserved areas through appropriate technology and renewable energy. The Salud del Sol team, including IIH member Anna Young, is currently researching a solar autoclave (solar-powered medical instrument sterilizer) for use in rural clinics of Nicaragua.

Brass Magazine:

It started as something simple: find a project that would satisfy the requirements for an honors thesis. But what came out of a simple summer internship has grown into a nonprofit business that has the potential to impact lives across the globe.

Lori Hanna ignited the fire for her nonprofit, Salud del Sol, in 2006 when she became interested in pairing solar-powered oven technology with an autoclave – an appliance that sterilizes medical equipment. Solar-powered ovens (called solar cookers) were already being built and used in a small community in Nicaragua. The idea for a solar-powered autoclave had been dreamt up and abandoned by another engineer. Because the solar autoclave would make a huge difference in the quality of medical care in rural Nicaraguan clinics, Lori took on the challenge. The resulting nonprofit, Salud del Sol, has been snowballing ever since.

Read this article at brassmagazine.com.