International Development Conference at KSG this weekend!

Unlike last time, I didn't forget to register for this!

http://idcharvard.org/schedule.html

Handheld Scanner Detects Brain Injuries

In 2004, InfraScan won the Wharton Business Plan competition for a "a cost effective, mobile medical imaging system for detecting brain hematomas". After some substantial pre-clinical funding, they have a device that uses differential near-infrared light absorbtion to tell the difference between the bleeding versus non bleeding parts of the brain. That way you can detect a hematoma even you are hours away from getting to a proper CT scan. The patent protected device is now pending FDA approval.

More at Medgadget

Tuesday: Global Health Challenge Symposium

THD Blog reminded us about Rice's Global Health Challenge Symposium on Tuesday.
This is part of a larger program at Rice called Beyond Borders:

Beyond Traditional Borders encourages students to transcend geographic and disciplinary boundaries to understand, address and solve health problems in the developing world through the design and implementation of new appropriate health technologies.

Perhaps anyone out there will take some notes for us, sounds like a great event.

A Round Up of Neat Stuff

THD Blog highlights Stanford's "Rethinking International Health".

Worldchanging covered BusinessWeek's "Design for Social Innovation"

Anne Swift found SustainLaine, a startup with innovative offerings that bring awareness of sustainable living. This includes an animated series, and a national city rankings for sustainability (1. Portland, 2. Seattle, 3. San Francisco...Boston was 7, yeah!)

She also announces the BiD Challenge 2007---win 20,000 Euros for your social venture.

And also of note Fast Company's Social Capitalist Awards

Check out US AID's New Health Database

Our friends at World Bank PSD blog has uncovered a very cool health database: The Private SEctor Partnership for Better Health. It's run by USAID as a guide to who's doing what in the public-private global health area.

Some snippets:
Unilever has funded two ambulances that visit remote villages in India. Proctor & Gamble sending the PUR filter to Dominican Republic with the help of Population Services International. Greenstar sells a variety of products aimed at reproductive and mother/baby health in Pakistan.

Enjoy searching here.

Tags: organization, public-private interface, metrics, US AID

Vaccines are so 1955, try filtering the bugs out

Aethlon Medical’s wants get rid of any dangerous biowarfare agents you may have caught by filtering them out of your blood. We’ve come a long way from leeching and bleeding. Their Hemo Purifier filter cartridges employ plant-derived antibodies that adhere to viruses. Their two versions include a device for the ICE about a foot long, and a portable version the size of a large pen. They envision it connecting to the extracorporeal circuits of a dyalisis machine. No word on how long the procedure takes or how much it will cost. If successful, an emeregency drill might sound like “Find the nearest vein start filtering!” instead of “Duck and cover”.

More at Aethlon Medical

Portable ECG monitor

Over the past few months, I have become a little more familiar with the market for critical care monitoring in low-resource settings, so when I saw this new technology, I could not help but think about the potential for its use in the developing world as a low-cost monitor.

You can read more about it here

Tranforming Global Health Recap Recap

The full notes of the TiE Transforming Global Health are now at LTDC Conferences and Lectures. It's much easier to set up a parallel system for lengthy posts than taking up a bunch of space on this one. So here's what you'll see in the expanded version:

• Dr. Gerald Keusch, Associate Provost for Global Health, talking about new perspectives in tackling Global Health using innovation and political will.
• MGH's Thomas Burke, MD sharing the wealth of initiatives housed under MGH's Center for Global Health and Disaster Response. Including a project that repurposes an automobile into an isolette for babies (my favorite).
• Durable and locally manufacturable microfluidic diagnostic devices by the Klapperich Lab at BU.
• Need to catch up on your C-section skills? Try a few dry runs on a mother-baby simulator by the SIM Group at CIMIT thanks to advanced tissue engineering and software.
  
• Zebra Med: An online telemedical consult service that lets doctors volunteer their time and expertise in far away places in as little as 30 minutes at a time
• A handful of microclinic business models to cover urban, periurban, and rural patients
• A global pharma-sponsored set of research and aid programs to combat TB, malaria, and leprosy
• Insightful discussion on the promise of leapfrogging technologies in global health, and attracting young innovators towards to the field.

The full panel included:
Gerald T Keusch, Associate Dean for Global Health, Boston University
Neil Ryder, PhD, Executive Director of Infectious Diseases, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research
Thomas Burke, MD, Director, Center for Global Health and Disaster Response, MGH
Alexis Wallace, Executive Director, Medicine in Need
Vikram Sheel Kumar, MD, co-Founder, President and CEO, Dimagi

They were followed by a number of entrepreneurs active in the intersection of health, technology, and BOP opportunities.

Tags: appropriate, drugs, economics, education, diagnostics, telemedicine, rural healthcare, organization, trends, TiE, Klapperich, CIMIT, MGH