Our first project, funded in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is a low cost, point-of-care diagnostic device for measuring liver function – critical for monitoring the adverse side effects of the powerful drugs used to treat HIV/AIDS and TB, and for managing the effects of viral hepatitis. It is currently impossible to economically monitor liver function outside hospital or laboratory settings; and this device will save hundreds of thousands of lives each year.
Creating this first device is providing us with valuable experience in the design and engineering of inexpensive, readily manufactured paper diagnostics, and we expect to form alliances for their manufacture and distribution. In time, we plan to develop devices for broader assessments of patient health and for a range of important diseases such as TB, malaria, HIV/AIDS, and diabetes. For example, we plan to extend the functionality of the liver diagnostic device to detect kidney disease as well. We will also remain alert to other technological innovations that would extend our ability to create low cost diagnostic devices suitable for the developing world. And while our focus is, and will remain, creating diagnostic devices for the developing world, we foresee our devices being useful in the developed world as well, particularly in pediatrics, emergency response, public health screening, environmental control, veterinary medicine, and for the military.
Just as the Whitesides Laboratory at Harvard University serves as a rich source of technological innovation for DFA, we welcome the opportunity to work with others in a variety of frameworks to create diagnostic tests that will help to save lives and alleviate disease in the developing world. Contact DFA »
