Little Devices That Could

How To: Mark your tools for easy identification

2012-01-22T13:41:00.001-05:00

From Boing Boing:

How To: Mark your tools for easy identification:

Steve Hoefer (a fantastic maker who I interviewed on the Make: Talk podcast earlier this week) has come up with a great way to clearly mark his tools so they don't get lost when he brings them to a hackerspace.

I also work at community workshops quite a bit, and while they often have a lot of tools around I sometimes like to bring my own. (Especially drill bits which seem to always be dull and in exactly the wrong size.) It’s best if my tools don’t mix with theirs.

And finally, tools add up to be a pretty bing investment, they sometimes like to get themselves stolen. It’s good to mark them in a way that might prevent that or aid in their recovery if they are.
So, some identifying marks are in order. There are really two different things going on here, immediate identification, to separate your tools from others, and post-theft ID, to identify the tools as your own.

Steve Hoefer shows how to mark your tools for easy identification

Talkback | What Government can learn from the private sector

2012-01-04T18:52:00.002-05:00

Engineering for Change has a nice article by Mr. Julian Leland on what the government can learn from the private sector.

Funding international engineering projects can be tricky, but the private sector has evolved some tactics that work. There are hundreds of private-sector funding opportunities available – competitions, grants, crowd-funding and others – many of which are documented here on E4C. Between businesses, foundations and charitable individuals, the private sector nimbly provides billions of dollars in funding. Unfortunately, despite the size of this funding pool, the competition is fierce.

E4C asked me to comment:

This is a nice start to what could be a long conversation. Government could certainly learn from the private sector, but it should not cherry pick just the options usually get the most PR. Unfortunately, this is where we are when it comes to funding international engineering and I'm guessing that Mr. Leland is talking about international development + engineering as opposed to say, a new wing in the Oslo's airport.

In my short experience, I'm learning that international development technology funding should be backed at earlier stages to maintain the momentum of promising (albet risky) ideas. DARPA is an excellent example of an agency that does this and whose discipline at doing that is why you can probably read this post online---they funded Arpanet the precursor to the Internet.

SBIRs are an excellent example of small scale funding at work with R&D in mind, not just a bid for proven services. We don't really have that in international development in the U.S. Not for technology, and we should. The same companies that can come up with a better rocket guidance system for use in places like Afghanistan could develop a remote diagnostic sample distribution system for clinics in the area. The dollars are not there, even if the hearts and minds of those designers back home would jump at the chance. The illusion that adjacent research activities can pay for the save the world activities doesn't always ring true. That means investing in the mission, plain and simple.

Crowdsourcing is an exciting venue and I'm a huge fan of the Kickstarters of the world. What I like about it is that they are backing something that could conceivably go very wrong. They are distributing the risk though. So if you $20 doesn't go the right way for the that Arduino-powered balloon, that's the way it goes sometimes. As taxpayers, we've implicitly Kickstarted our way to backing early stage projects. We need to let our elected officials know that they should back early stage research and development engineering projects for poor countries. Regrettably, the current administration's approaches may be perceived at shying away from investing in innovation, and instead focusing in safety---and maybe exciting---targets.

I'm glad Mr. Leland didn't focus on prizes. We don't do prizes in the private sector as a leading investment vehicle, so we should not do that on the development side. Prizes are great as recognition of a job well done, or as a catalyst to steer a field that is already funded to go after many different directions. Hoping that a prize for curing or diagnosing a disease, or solving arsenic, or increasing poverty alleviation makes as much sense as a having a prize be the sole mechanism to solving unemployment. Try that approach on a State Legislature seeking support from the Federal government and you may get an earful.

In kind support can be tremendous. Every university and engineering group approaches by USAID should be given a permanent liaison that can tell them exactly where to go for such help. I actually had someone at the agency once tell me that they could answer which questions they could answer over the phone. We have a long way to go, but we can get there.

My favorite quote these days [see my previous post] on investing for innovation is Neal Stephenson's from his recent essay Innovation Starvation:

"Innovation can’t happen without accepting the risk that it might fail. The vast and radical innovations of the mid-20th century took place in a world that, in retrospect, looks insanely dangerous and unstable. Possible outcomes that the modern mind identifies as serious risks might not have been taken seriously — supposing they were noticed at all — by people habituated to the Depression, the World Wars, and the Cold War, in times when seat belts, antibiotics, and many vaccines did not exist. "

I think this applies our challenges in the developing world as well. In our lab, we find risky challenges and go for them. It's sometimes a lonely journey surrounded by hype cycles, but we think it's a worthy one.

Is Social Entrepreneurship a Ponzi Scheme? Too many buzzwords, not enough nuts and bolts

2011-12-07T09:19:00.001-05:00

Can Ponzi schemes leak into the social entrepreneurship space? Perhaps.

I'm on a bus to NYC for the day and just as I was approaching Springfield, MA when Paul Hudnut at BOPreneur posted an article by Laurie Lane-Zucker, CEO of Hotfrog. I've never heard of Hotfrog, I've never heard of Laurie Lane-Zucker. Nevertheless, his essay on what's wrong with a maturing social entrepreneurship space that's more awash in the buzzwords and consultant speak of impact and innovation that in the transparent reality of the difficulty of pulling off the hard stuff an inspiring wake up call to those courageous folks trying to make the world a better place.

If we were to add some more powerful stats, this article could be one of the most important pieces written on speaking truth to power in the scene. It's the type of writing that could catalyze TheFunded.com type of open database on rating investments in social enterprise.

Lane-Zucker bravely points out items that most of us see but never collectively call people in the SE space on:

From early on, I came across a frequent disconnect between the entrepreneurs in the space and some of the space’s institutional leadership. One of the first people I hired as a consultant to help in my business’s development had just closed up shop on her own social venture for lack of investment. When I told her the reason I was going down this path was in part because I had been assured there was much more funding available than in the charitable space, she scoffed and told me not to believe it. “There is hardly any money to be found,” she reflected bitterly.

More recently, when I mentioned to the co-founder of one of the most respected networks in the space that I was not seeing a lot of early stage money, he fervently contradicted me: “There’s tons of money available!”

I particularly like the point

"Most investment funds that have been set up in the social/impact spaces (i.e. Impact50) are focused on mezzanine and growth stage investments (in other words: if you are already making money, we may invest our money; if you are not, then you are too early)"

If you combine that fact with the undeniable requirements for investments in risky endeavors, especially when challenges require invention and innovation, you can see not just the Ponzi scheme but a nearsighted lens on executing the hard stuff. Hard stuff is not just collecting information on a mobile phone about health, it's about creating that diagnostic or treatment device for you to do something about it in the first place. Hard stuff is not just creating a super mashed up version of a business model that assumes social entrepreneurs actually enjoy a strange lifestyle that combines exotic conference locations with a struggle-pay-their-student-loan lifestyle. Hard stuff is investing in the SE startup facing the reality that the co-founders have 10 different options in the non-SE space that will be meaningless, yet investible. The hard stuff makes an impact and it's a road worth travelling. We're just going to have to find better vehicles than Cinderella pumpkins.

Recently, Neal Stephenson wrote an inspiring article in Wired that reminded geeks like myself why we keep trying the hard stuff, despite the environment that Lane-Zucker describes

"Innovation can’t happen without accepting the risk that it might fail. The vast and radical innovations of the mid-20th century took place in a world that, in retrospect, looks insanely dangerous and unstable. Possible outcomes that the modern mind identifies as serious risks might not have been taken seriously — supposing they were noticed at all — by people habituated to the Depression, the World Wars, and the Cold War, in times when seat belts, antibiotics, and many vaccines did not exist. "

Have AK-47, will monitor IV.

2011-08-20T12:30:00.002-05:00

So the challenge in Ocotal, Nicaragua was to make an IV alarm using locally available materials. Toys were abundant, cheap, and easily hackable. The video it best.

MEDIKit Nicaragua Jan-Feb 2011, a set on Flickr.

Encouraging Inventiveness

2011-08-02T01:06:00.003-05:00

A few months ago, I wrote this response piece in Boston Review. It distills a lot of things we strive for at D-Lab, IIH, and the larger MIT community: making invention a toolset that can be embedded in our community partners. For those of you who've asked for links, here's an excerpt and the full piece after the jump.

Rachel Glennerster and Michael Kremer point out that interventions in health and education need to complement much more complex machinery: human behavior. They are right. And their argument can go a step further. Engaging local stakeholders in the design of policies and solutions can boost the innovative behavior of the people whose well-being we evaluate.

At MIT’s D-Lab we believe that users in the developing world have the potential to be the everyday inventors of their own solutions. In a Nicaraguan hospital, a nurse might quietly create neonatal UV protectors from layers of surgical gauze. Around the corner in the operating room, surgeons can be found trading sutures for fishing line and drainage valves for cut-up soda bottles that work just as well. These inventive behaviors are often hidden. The designs are remaches, geuzas, improvisations, hacks. Not exactly the stuff of professional associations. This is only because they lack the last bit of formal engineering that makes them appear the brilliant solutions they in fact are.

Traditionally, technology designers who focus on the developing world try to create affordable solutions adaptable to the local environment. They might develop efficient water pumps that run on pedal power, cell phones with longer ranges and smarter features, and syringes that are safer and more accessible, with retractable needles that automatically disable them. Our approach is to encourage co-creation in the design process: we want to empower locals to invent, so they can be collaborators, not just clients. In our fieldwork we teach students to look for inventive behaviors, and many of our interventions have originated with users. Cultivating inventiveness and the tools of invention among the poor is our priority.

More at Boston Review

Prototyping Devices for (and with) Visually Impaired Designers

2011-07-03T14:37:00.004-05:00

One of the newest researchers at Innovations in International Health @ MIT is Ted Moallem. Ted directs a project called the Blind-Lead Initiative which aims at developing solution for the blind by also enabling them to prototyping their own devices. One of the results looks like this:

What’s more impressing is the amount work the group has done in actually designing a solution that the users themselves can prototype and redesign.

More at http://blindlead.mit.edu/

UL Pen is mightier then the solder gun

2011-07-03T09:06:00.002-05:00

Researchers at the University of Illinois have created a silver-inked rollerball pen to write out electrical circuits.

from Eurekalert:

"The key advantage of the pen is that the costly printers and printheads typically required for inkjet or other printing approaches are replaced with an inexpensive, hand-held writing tool," said Lewis, who is also affiliated with the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.

More at Advanced Materials

The Lewis group seems to be in great shape to make a dent in small scale and distributed manufacturing and prototyping technologies:

Lewis Lab site:

Our group is divided into three main sub-groups with a rich and overlapping set of interests:

(1) Complex Fluids - We investigate the phase behavior, structure, and rheology of colloidal suspensions using a broad array of techniques, including light scattering, rheological measurements, in situ drying stress measurements, and direct visualization approaches, such as confocal microscopy and high speed imaging. Our current focus includes microsphere-nanoparticle mixtures, biphasic colloid mixtures, colloid-filled hydrogels, polyelectrolyte complexes, and photoresponsive colloid systems.

(2) Colloidal Assembly - We employ directed assembly approaches including colloidal epitaxy, evaporative lithography, and microfluidic devices to create precisely patterned colloidal films, granules, and other 3D forms.

(3) Direct Ink Writing - We are designing novel inks for direct-write assembly of planar and 3-D structures with locally tailored composition and architecture. A myriad of ink designs are under development, including colloidal, nanoparticle, fugitive organic, polyelectrolyte and sol-gel inks. Complex 3D structures h ave been produced with minimum feature sizes ranging from ~ 0.2 µm to 300 µm

Bob Malkin on Medical Technology Donations at TEDx Chapel Hill

2011-06-21T11:52:00.000-05:00

Little Bits of LTDC

2011-04-17T20:45:00.002-05:00

Sweetening resistance: manuka honey explored as a vehicle to combat antiobotic resistance. Professor Rose Cooper from the University of Wales Institute Cardiff presented her groups findings with streptocicci and pseudomands this Spring.

What’s the best way to get your vaccine on? Spray it according to researchers at Albany Medical College in New York.

PNAS reports on the amazing links between tuberculosis and the fur trade. As if PETA didn’t have enough amunition!

Check up your Coartem stock wtih the U.S. Pharmacopeia’s Promoting Quality of Medicine Program.

A new TB test can tell if you’ve got the latent or active form of the disease. PLoS One has the full story.

MEDIK: Dispatches from the Field

2011-02-13T16:12:00.001-05:00

From the IIH Blog:

It’s 91 degrees in Managua this Saturday afternoon and we are on the last leg of our train-the-trainer modules for MEDIK. We’ve spent more time abroad the last two months than an MIT. That’s about the change with the start of the semester. This weekend, we’ll be working Ocotal’s district hospital introducing healthcare workers to two new kits: Vital Signs and Prosthetics. [udpate: we just passed an Iguana crossing]

To recap MEDIK—Medical Design and Invention Kits are a series of lab-in-box kits that serve as “Erector sets” for medical devices. Our approach is nurter inventive behavior amongst “McGuyver docs and nurses” working in global health. We already know that they are coming up with ingenious ways around everyday problems.

For Vital Signs, we are going to introduce a series of components that make up an EKG, electronic stethoscope, some dopplers, and simpler point of care vital signs diagnostic such as pulse oximeters. Bear in mind, we’re not just giving them the final devices. We’re providing a toolkit that allows them to build these devices, add things such as telemetry and datalogging, and create interesting modifucations to make them mor rugged, modular, and useful for their settings. It’s giving them the solution space and the exciting part is going to be what they come up with in the next few days.

In the next post, we’ll talk about the Prosthetic Kit. You’ve never seen a fruit picker work like this before…

MEDIK starts in Nicaragua

2011-01-01T18:25:00.000-05:00

Try It: nGram Viewer by Google

2010-12-16T21:36:00.002-05:00

Google Books nGram Viewer

Robotic transport meets baby and it's awesome

2010-11-13T14:34:00.001-05:00

Robotic mobility for the little ones: "

From Hackaday:

Researchers at the University of Delaware are helping disabled kids by designing robot transportation for them. Exploring one’s environment is an important part of early development. Disabilities that limit mobility can prevent young children from experiencing this. Typically children are not offered a powered wheelchair until they are five or six years old, but adding intelligent technologies, like those found in the UD1, makes this possible at a much younger age. Proximity sensors all around the drive unit of the robot add obstacle avoidance and ensure safety when used around other children. When confronted with an obstacle the UD1 will stop, or navigate around it. The unit is controlled by a joystick in front of the rider but it can also be overridden remotely by a teacher, parent, or caregiver.

[via Robot Gossip]

Haute Couture Blood Bags

2010-10-10T21:33:00.001-05:00

Haute Couture Blood Bags:

From Medgadget:

Designer Jihye Lee proposes a different look for blood collection bags featuring a more solid construction, large labeling of blood type, and a look as though it's meant for sale on 5th Avenue.

Link @ Yanko Design...

3D printing goes mainstream ...beyond rapid-prototyping

2010-09-14T09:43:00.005-05:00

3D printing has advanced from being a prototyping tool for designers to a manufacturing implement to make a variety of different objects like prosthetics, medical devices and even houses! Excellent article in today's New York Times about the varied applications and players involved in this exciting new arena.

Geographic Epidemiology with mobile phones and GPS

2010-09-13T14:40:00.003-05:00

Terrific piece in today's New York Times on a project to assess the impact of roads and traffic on wildlife. Dr. Ron Ringen, a retired veterinarian has been mapping roadkill on a stretch of highway near his home - he photographs the roadkill and uses GPS coordinates to overlay markers on a Google Map thereby generating a visually rich, real-time display. The project is now growing by leaps and bounds and attracting the attention of government regulatory authorities, insurance companies and environmental groups.

Can you imagine if John Snow had this technology in 1854 ...how long would it have taken him to trace cholera to that contaminated pump on Broad Street ...!

MIT introduces NETRA: eye exam on a phone

2010-09-09T09:19:00.004-05:00

MIT News reports on a new Media Lab technology that could revolutionize the way eye tests are done in the developing world.

from the news site:

Now, a team at MIT's Media Lab has come up with a much quicker, simpler and cheaper way to get the same information — a method that is especially suitable for remote, developing-world locations that lack these expensive systems. Two billion people have refractive errors, and according to the World Health Organization, uncorrected refractive errors are the world's second-highest cause of blindness, affecting some 2 percent of the world's population; all these people are potential beneficiaries of the new system. The team is preparing to conduct clinical trials, but preliminary testing with about 20 people, and objective tests using camera lenses, have shown that it can achieve results comparable to the standard aberrometer test.

I think is representative of what is really going to make mobile health tick: mobile medical peripherals. We've seen this concept work before: mobile glucometers, stethoscopes, and telemedical setups like ClickDisgnostics.

MIT News:

The team will be field-testing the device in the Boston area this summer and will later test it in developing countries. The team already has applied for a patent on the system, named NETRA (Near-Eye Tool for Refractive Assessment), and team members won a prize this year in MIT’s annual IDEAS competition — a contest for inventions and business ideas that have a potential to make a significant impact in the developing world — and were finalists in the 2010 student-run MIT $100K Business Plan Competition.

The Marmota Project Could Be the Next Big Thing for Augmented Reality

2010-09-06T22:34:00.003-05:00

Augment reality could provide field workers with instant information about a site, it's health, and nearby resources. Project Marmota, while not health-centric (yet, we're going to send an email) could very well provide the tools to make it happen.

SciFoo 2010 and its Disney World of Big Ideas

2010-08-17T07:55:00.018-05:00

SciFoo is annual gathering of scientists, technologists, and geeks in general held at Googleplex in Mountain View.

Thursday
SciFoo is 24 hours away. Pretrip planning becomes calm excitement as the participant updates grow on the wiki. The list reads like a runway show of scientists and technologists. Bob Langer, Frank Wilczek, Esther Dyson, Jaron Lanier, Bill Nye.

It’s not a name dropping contest. The list is interrupted by awesome descriptions of new people and ideas that are now on my Must-Meet/Must-See List.

Big Data: Exascale Astronomy

Open-source drug discovery: possible or not?

The Joys and Sorrows of Blogging on a Network

Do We Live in a Multiverse?

What is the minimum publishable unit? And should we start doing it?

Automating Science

Motivating People to Help the World's Poor

Lab Books 2.0

So I plan—the type of planning you'd do at Disney World to make sure you meet your favorite characters. Remember how dad would optimize the schedule to be first in line for Space Mountain and Tomorrowland Transit Authority? That's me scribbling people's bio's and the session suggestions.

We’re not in Florida and it’s not Disney. This is SciFoo at the Googleplex—Space Mountain has the possibility of going to a one of many multiverses according to Alan Guth, and the car designs in Tomorrowland could be explained by evolutionary design instructions presented by Cornell’s Hod Lipson. Instead of Cinderella, we get a Nobel Prize winning physicist, a fossil expert, a baby psychologist, a chemical-informatics-expert-turned-world-economic-data-indexer and a science toy expert. That and a guy who reconstructed Babbage’s Difference Engine.

Out of Legos.

Friday

Nature, Wired, Discover, PNAS, and the Science and Technology Sections of the New York Times have come alive.

Disney World turns into a Black Friday frenzy as folks dash to two-day scheduling board to secure session spot. Here's where I am awed the controlled chaos that the SciFoo team creates: Small details like blocking of certain hours for people arriving late. Printing every single

participate picture on the wall so you can recognize cool people to run into. Generous sources of caffeine. Handing out tiny little red notebooks to write anything, because you are swimming in ideas. Tim O'Reilly's strong suggestion to stay off the computer and focus on the content and face-to-face interaction.

Photo taken by Easternblot

Friday night begins to paint a multicolored picture of the weekend.

References to fire hoses are woefully inadequate. I meet up with Vaughan Bell, a British neuropsychologist working in Colombia, to plan a session “The State of Third World Science”. Logistics in place, we check out the outdoor bar, where I find some doughnuts with Michelle Khine and trade notes on lab-on-a-chip systems made from Shrinky Dinks. Carnegie-Mellon’s Adrien Treuille and I seem to be on someone's favorite invite list–we ran into each other at PCAST three weeks ago. The co-developer of Fold It and I trade ideas on nebulizer flow simulation.

Then I run into Simon Field from SciToys.com. We’ve never met–but we are on each other's list and spend the next couple days brainstorming ideas for my next medical device. Simon gave me a crash course on DIY optics which led to a laser microscope construction with two webcam lenses he gave me. This will come in handy as a class exercise if I write about instant prototyping anytime soon.

Saturday

Speaking of writing, it’s textbooks that have the group at 9 AM on Saturday all excited–the future of textbook that is. After that, I’m about to go to Matt Todd’s talk on Open Science but it's 10 AM and realized that Vaughn and I are up in Beirut (the name of the room) to kick off our discussion on Third World Science and Scientists. What else would you do on a Saturday morning in sunny California.

To find out about the conclusions of our talk click here. After this, it’s decisions decisions decisions so I crashed the lightning talks and pay attention to Three Rules for Mad Scientists (Garrett Lisi), Carl Zimmer's Three Rules to be Understood;

From his Blog:

After that, Jonah Lerer describes how to engineer aha moments, I have one of my very own. I run into rapid prototyping guru Hod Lipson from Cornell (Fab@Home). I get a crash course–I get a lot of the these over the weekend— on our RP tech and its future. He went on to host two sessions where he challenged us to describe the killer app for personal fabrication. My money’s diagnostic manufacturing and on-demand drugs for remote regions .

Fabrication, objects, convenience and immediacy took a back seat during a fiery discussion on the Templeton Foundation where I got to meet Dan Barcay of Google and Hal Abelson of MIT–Cambridge geeks tend to gravitate, especially when we can commiserate about the awful weather waiting for us back home. After mentally bracing the upcoming weather we brainstormed on using the new Android Inventor App for interfacing medical technologies in the developing world. Stay tuned for an update from Cambridge on that one.

Back in Cambridge is where you find Derek Lowe, of Vetter Pharmaceuticals who co-presented with Matt Todd on their quest to pursue the first-ever open source drug discovery platform. They are crowdsourcing drug discovery. Everyone can help!

That's in fact the point that Peter Singer is trying to convey when he talks about this book The Life You Can Save and its message about helping the poor through the individual commitments of everyday people.

It's 5 PM and my brain is running faster than I can talk—sentences seem to fade off as constantly get distracted…that’s Tim O’Reilly, wait did that other guy say prototyping structures out of DNA…I want to try Simon’s Air Canon.

I'm next and I’m not going to lie— kind of freaking out because no one voted for my session: DIY Medical Technologies. I'll be happy if 5 people show up–including a friend from MIT. MEDIKit in hand, I find that the room is full, the projector is ready (after some trial and error) and I try my darnedest to focus on being open and candid. We’re not selling research, we’re sharing what’s working and what’s not. This is by far the smartest group of folks I've encountered, let alone present to. They wowed me with their questions, challenge my positions, and played with our gadgets. DIY Medical Tech might make it after all.

As the evening opens up for dinner, I strike to strike a conversation with a bioethicist on the merits of regulatory reform for global health medical devices; schedule prototypes of diagnostics with Hal Abelson, learn about open source microscopy environments from Jason Swedlow.

It's easy, it's friendly and these folks have nothing to prove but everything to share. Disney should learn from Scifoo because for geeks, this is the Magic Kingdom, where we can wish upon a star, or rapid prototype your own.

New Fund Open for Medical Technology Innovation in India thanks to Wellcome Trust

2010-08-05T19:11:00.004-05:00

Wellcome Trust, the group behind artemisinin and human genome sequencing at the Sanger Institute has just bolstered an existing £80 million initiative to support Indian scientists working on medtech. The project's aim is truly enviable: India and the Wellcome Trust are each contributing £22.5 into a fund for product development of healthcare products.

The press release is sparse on operational details, and that’s what we’re watching out for. The memo says that

“to bring together researchers from both the public and private sectors, largely working in India, to develop innovative new devices, diagnostics, medicines and vaccines that will reach the greatest numbers of beneficiaries, without compromising on quality.”

I hope that includes researchers in other countries, and institutions currently working in the area so that our Indian colleagues won’t have to reinvent the wheel and instead open up their initiatives to co-discovery. I also hope that it can lead impact on the ground and in remote areas and not just a gateway for Indian exports to wealthier markets. That model has been done before, and we sincerely need one that addresses patients living in the lowest economic levels of the pyramid.

R&D for Affordable Heatlhcare Initiative

What: Affordable healthcare products for India
Who: Welcomme Trust and DBT Alliance India
Who can play: Anyone operating in India with or with a project in India
More at Wellcome Trust

Quants versus Newtonian Managers

2010-08-05T07:38:00.001-05:00

I’ve yet to read the book. As a designer a lot of the descriptions on Design Thinking seem to be obvious in what I do. I’m sure there is more it. In the meantime, The New York Times has a short analysis on how Designs Thinking and Six Sigma (I’m not necessarily a fan) can co-exist successfully.

Chuck Jones at Whirlpool tells the NYTimes:

“Design thinkers, he says, are like quantum physicists, able to consider a world in which anything — like traveling at the speed of light — is theoretically possible. But the majority of people, include Six Sigma advocates in most corporations, think more like Newtonian physicists — focused on measurements along three well-defined dimensions.

Analysis of case studies are great, but as SELCO Solar’s Harish Hande says, go out and create your case study. So whether it’s reengineering, agile management, Six Sigma, or Design Thinking, let’s be on the lookout for groups that leave the best model out there—the one that delivers an impact to the customer (or the patient).

Linkdrop

2010-06-14T08:56:00.002-05:00

My tweeter feed has resulted in some new blogs that cover global health and global health issues. Check them out!

Time Magazine on the challenges

Global Health Blog

The Global Health Council conference

Florida TB Hospital Reminds the Disease is Closer We Remember

2010-06-14T08:31:00.001-05:00

The NYTimes is featuring the oldest TB sanatoriums on their cover page. A.G. Holley is a state run facility in Florida that cares for patients who have failed to complete TB therapy. Many of them are being treatment for multiple drug resistant tuberculosis.

Sixty years after it opened, it is both a paragon of globalized public health and a health care anachronism, where strangers live together for months with boredom, pills, pain, contemplation and the same ancient disease that killed George Orwell, Franz Kafka and Eleanor Roosevelt. There used to be 500 patients here, surrounded by brush, with nursing quarters segregated by race. Now, no more than 50 live in the main building, above echoing, empty floors sometimes rented out as a location for filming horror movies.
They have all moved in, like generations past, because they are unable to control their illnesses. Some have traditional TB, the airborne contagion carried by one-third of the world’s population, which becomes a lung-wasting menace in only about 10 percent of the infected. A growing number of others arrive with drug-resistant mutations that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to treat.

One of the things that is interesting about the story is the notion of how the word 'sanatorium' remains part of the hospital's culture. Patients can get dentures, healthcare beyond TB treatment, and even on-site cultural events.

Patients also leave with more than just stronger lungs. Maintaining old sanitarium ideals, Holley offers care beyond TB, whether dentures and eyeglasses or cultural activities, including outdoor classical music concerts for the noncontagious. Many Holley residents who hated arriving end up leaving profoundly changed.
“It’s not uncommon, as patients get better, for them to see this as a second chance at life,” says Dr. David Ashkin, Holley’s medical director, a Brooklynite with a hard-rock ’80s mullet. “It’s very spiritual and life changing to go from nearly dead to alive.”

More at NYTimes

Colorado University Dry-Powder Measles Vaccine device on video

2010-05-06T13:45:00.002-05:00

For the last few years, Dr. Robert Sievers and his team have been using Activ-Dry technology to create an inhalable measles vaccine.

Amy Smith listed among Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People

2010-05-03T16:55:00.002-05:00

MIT D-Lab's own Amy Smith (and my boss) has been recognized by Time Magazine as one of the most influential people in the world. We couldn't be more proud!

From the Time Article:

It's fine to help the developing world, but first you have to know what it needs. Amy Smith does.
An engineer and the founder of MIT's innovative D-Lab, Smith, 47, is a former Peace Corps volunteer who spent parts of her childhood in India and Botswana. She's the creator of a hammer mill that converts grain to flour and an incubator that does not require electricity. Her design philosophy is elegant: create simple machines that meet particular needs and then build them locally.
Smith is also a teacher, taking kids to Haiti and Africa, where they design pumps, bicycle parts and other gear people need. Her machines are one of her gifts to the world; the students she trains will be an even more enduring one.
Pentland is a professor in the MIT Media Lab and the director of its entrepreneurship program

Aussie Patch technology could lead to easier vaccine delivery

2010-04-26T11:11:00.000-05:00

Australian researchers have developed a transdermal drug delivery system that uses a series of nanoneedles to delivery vaccines just below the upper skin surface.

Being both painless and needle-free, the nanopatch offers hope for those with needle phobia, as well as improving the vaccination experience for young children.

"The Nanopatch targeted specific antigen-presenting cells found in a narrow layer just beneath the skin surface and as a result we used less than one hundredth of the dose used by a needle while stimulating a comparable immune response," Professor Kendall said.

"Our result is ten times better than the best results achieved by other delivery methods and does not require the use of other immune stimulants, called adjuvants, or multiple vaccinations.

Because the Nanopatch requires neither a trained practitioner to administer it nor refrigeration, it has enormous potential cheaply deliver vaccines in developing nations," he said.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lc_3M-8K6I&feature=player_embedded

Similiar patch systems have developed at Georgia Tech (one of the first articles we saw was back in '98) and HP, but have not been commercialized.

More at University of Queensland

What's that random pill found in the sofa? ID it with Pillbox

2010-04-26T09:07:00.000-05:00

Everyone once in a while we see our tax dollars at work on a very creative project. It's pretty simple: an online interface allows you to visually identify almost any pill just by filtering it's characteristics: color, size, scoring, shape. Neat.

more at Pillbox

D-Lab Health Goes to Nicaragua!

2010-03-24T11:38:00.001-05:00

D-Lab Health class in Nicaragua on a medical expedition. We are looking at a number of hospitals and clinics to find medical hacks, potential design challenges, and useful field exposure. More at http://nicaequipo2010.posterous.com/

- Jose

Antivaccination backlash: The sad legacy of Wakefield's False Science

2010-02-07T18:19:00.002-05:00

The LA Times is covering this month's news of the Lancet's retraction of Andrew Wakefield's infamous paper linking autism and MMR shots. We applaud the journal in doing the right thing. It's a sad day to think that kids in all sorts of countries have been subject to suffering because of an irresponsible "scientist" set on pushing an agenda.

The LA Times

In 1998, Wakefield wrote and then vociferously hawked an article in the British medical journal Lancet linking autism to the MMR vaccine (measles, mumps and rubella). After the council's decision, Lancet this week retracted the article. Among the facts that have come out of the inquiry into Wakefield's research is that two years before his paper appeared, lawyers seeking to sue vaccine makers paid Wakefield the equivalent of $700,000.

After Wakefield's article appeared, vaccination levels plummeted in Britain and declined in the United States, and the diseases they prevented surged. Measles cases increased sevenfold in the U.S.

"One person's research set us back a decade, and we're just now recovering from that," Mark Sawyer, a pediatrician and infectious disease specialist at Radey Children's Hospital in San Diego, told me in an interview.

The article also covers Hollywood crackpots who take advantage of their status and well positioned voices to spread falsehoods:

Romaguera is especially upset by "celebrity science," as exemplified by Jenny McCarthy. The actress and former Playboy playmate claims vaccines made her son autistic but that she "cured" him. There is no cure. McCarthy's antics include yelling at three physicians on "Larry King Live," and exclaiming: "My son died in front of me from a vaccine injury!" Her son is alive, as she later acknowledged.

Yet she'd be little more than an opinionated pinup girl but for being invited to share her "expertise" on "Larry King," ABC's "20/20," "Good Morning America" and other popular shows. All this has helped propel McCarthy's two books on autism to bestsellerdom.

"Celebrities are entitled to support a cause," said Sawyer. "But when they give professional advice, I think that's dangerous."

Smart pills for health – look familiar?

2010-01-16T10:17:00.003-05:00

The latest issue of the Economist magazine describes “smart pill” technology – the pill has an embedded chip that, once ingested, can transmit data to an external receiver such as a skin patch or a cell phone.

“…… the coupling of smart pills with wireless networks and mobile phones, allowing the information the pills capture to be beamed to doctors, patients and relatives, turns the technology into “a disruptive innovation about to happen”. Vitality, an American firm, has come up with a cap for pill bottles that telephones hapless patients if they fail to take their medicine on time. Vodafone, a mobile-phone operator, has just set up a mobile health unit in Britain. Orange, a French rival, already offers a service that records measurements from implanted heart monitors and transmits them to doctors via the internet. In Mexico, TelCel, the country’s biggest mobile operator, plans this month to launch a service that allows customers to determine whether they have flu using their mobile phones. Kalorama, a research group, estimates that sales of such services will leap from perhaps $4.3 billion last year to $9.6 billion by 2012.”

We have been talking for some time about the idea of using cell phones as enabling devices to collect and transmit health data. Especially since 4 billion people of the world now possess cell phones. We encourage the students in our medical device design class at MIT to consider incorporating cell phones and ICT to enhance the reach of their global health solutions.

“…There are some potential pitfalls, however. Stephen Oesterle of Medtronic, a devices firm involved in remote patient monitoring, thinks it a bit Orwellian for drug makers to keep such intimate tabs on their customers. He wonders whether spooked patients might disable all this clever kit. Tim van Biesen of Bain, a consultancy, believes that patients will need some kind of financial incentive to use smart pills.”

This is the idea behind XoutTB – our smart global health solution for ensuring drug compliance that combines the learnings of research on economic incentives research with science and technology. Evidently this idea has far-ranging applications.

Pesticide Detecting Paper Strip

2009-12-29T15:18:00.003-05:00

The Times Science section reports on a novel water testing strip developed by scientists at McMaster University in Canada. Instead of having to a fancy analytical assay to see if the water is good, you simply expose the lateral flow test which activates what is essentially a water diagnostic.

The New York Times:

...But scientists at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, are reporting the development of a simple paper sensor — a “laboratory on a strip” — that can be dunked in a sample and give a reading a short time later, like a litmus test.
The sensor, developed by John D. Brennan and colleagues, makes use of the fact that organophosphate pesticides like diazinon inhibit the action of acetylcholinesterase, an enzyme involved in nervous system function.

More at the Journal of Analytical Chemistry

Photoessay: A Day in the Life of a Midwife

2009-12-04T00:12:00.004-05:00

BBC has a fantastic short photoessay on midwives in Congo

Music video using cardiograph-like instruments

2009-11-29T09:15:00.003-05:00

Sometimes people definitely come up with a better use for an old piece of equipment.

I'll be gone from KORB on Vimeo.

Got Clomiphene? Let's have a baby--in Africa!

2009-11-08T23:00:00.004-05:00

Alright, don't get too excited. The October issue of the New Scientist write about a great new opportunity for infertile couples in the continent. We would normally think of Africa and fertility rates as a field that the focus of contraception endeavors given its high birth rate. 10 to 30 per cent of African couples are infertile however, which is higher than other parts of the world. That's twice the rate of Europe for instance. So a parallel group of scientists have developed schemes that bring affordable IVF to the continent---for about $350. Traditional IVF in the United States runs abour $12,000. How they are doing is the focus of an article in The New Scientist October issue.

By using generic drugs, modularizing the processes to essential steps, and using fewer eggs to start with they've produced an affordable approach to natural conception for couples.

The table below illustrates an example of how each approach saves money and achieves comparable results
New Scientist:

If successful, such efforts could lower the cost of IVF everywhere. In the US, the price of one round of treatment can be up to $12,000 and is rarely covered by health insurance. In the UK, it costs about £5000 ($8000), which the National Health Service may or may not pay for, depending on where a couple lives.

"Most of what we do in the western world is overkill," says Jonathan Van Blerkom of the University of Colorado at Boulder, a member of the ESHRE team. "If you get these procedures down to a low cost and they are successful, you cannot justify charging $12,000 for an IVF cycle."

The conclusion that is really interested here is the possibility of IVF latching on to a growing trend of South-North technology transfer: solutions aimed at the developing world that may very be useful for industrialized countries (e.g., OLPC--> Netbooks, Mobile phone 3G--> Pervasive Mobile Computing)

In contrast, the New York Times Science section recently ran a story on the rising costs of IVF back home.
A large portion of the expense comes from carrying multiple babies and the risks they carry as all too frequent premature births. It looks as if the CDC is talking to their African counterparts. The Times reports they hired an economist to look at the numbers.

In Atlanta, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hired an economist to predict what would happen if single embryo transfer were used in a large number of IVF cases.

Dr. Macaluso, the C.D.C. reproductive health official, estimates the patients, businesses and insurance providers would save more than $500 million annually, even taking into consideration the cost of extra in-vitro rounds, by lowering neonatal intensive care, special education and other costs of premature babies.

Expanded applications for Mobile phones in developing countries

2009-09-28T12:57:00.002-05:00

The Economist has a special report on the transformative impact of cell phones in the developing world - a technology that we view as an enabler and multiplier of global health devices.

Tapping into a library of answers using cell-phones

2009-09-28T12:44:00.004-05:00

I saw this article in today's New York Times about "Question Box" an answering service that people in the Uganda call into with their cell-phones and citizen-librarians scour the web for answers and call them right back. A simple solution that empowers and catalyzes development!
I was struck by the fact that these citizen-librarians are paid in cell-phone minutes ...similar to our approach to TB Therapeutic Compliance - XoutTB!

Microchipped BP Pills Remind Patients to Take Their Meds

2009-09-28T07:03:00.001-05:00

Someone at a conference recently alerted me to this approach to compliance. Those are some tiny chips!

Microchipped BP Pills Remind Patients to Take Their Meds

Shared via AddThis

Simple Breath Counter to Combat Pneumonia

2009-08-16T22:50:00.001-05:00

From our friends at Global Health Ideas, a new find for a live saving device---a breath counter.

healthcare + design award: fighting pneumonia in remote areas: "
I just discovered an interesting blog: healthcare + design and they had this post up on design excellence awards. Not sure how much this Breath Counter costs, but worth investigating further:
“Fighting Pneumonia: Breath Counter The Breath Counter is a simple, effective testing device to help detect pneumonia in children under five, living in remote areas in developing countries. Pneumonia is the number one cause of death in the under five worldwide, killing an average of two million each year. ”

Philanthropy by Design

“The Breath Counter was created within Philips Design’s Philanthropy by Design program, established in 2005 in which, together with partners such as Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), public bodies and social players with complementary expertise and values, Philips Design donates its creative expertise and socio-cultural knowledge to create solutions to improve the health and environment of the more fragile categories of the world’s developing societies.”

Medical Innovation in Nicaragua

2009-08-05T21:44:00.004-05:00

The IADB is supporting our project in Nicaragua for an appropriate biomedical innovation cluster. We are deploying a number of learning kits so that local inventors, physicians, engineers, and public health personnel can develop their next little devices that could. I'll try to cross post as much as I can, but otherwise, please visit the team blog at http://iihnicaragua.wordpress.com

$10 Medical Simulation
No, it’s not OPERATION, but it take a few cues from it. We simple breadboard circuit to create a basic platform for a medical probe simulator. You can use any time of instrument but we started with a syringe (we’re trying to get a biopsy needle). Some tin for conductive leads placed in our tissue simulator and some emdedded anatomical structures provide signals to a circuit tied to a webcam that sounds an alarm if a wrong path in the “intervention” has taken place.

Our idea is to let the doctors and healthcare workers decide what type of instrument and procedure they want to simulate. We’re providing the electronic and mechanical tools for it.

Economist Magazine monitors XoutTB

2009-06-06T05:36:00.005-05:00

The latest issue of the Economist magazine's Technology Monitor has a profile of our smart therapeutic compliance system - XoutTB.

THD Blog is now Global Health Ideas

2009-05-28T19:40:00.002-05:00

Aman, Jaspal, Ben and company have outdone themselves. The venerable global health blog, THD (Technology, Heath, and Development) is now Global Health Ideas, featuring a fresh, clean look and feel with more of the same content that we have been used to seeing over the years. This has to be my favorite global health blog and I bet it will rank among your top 10, if it isn’t already. Take note of their new address http://globalhealthideas.org/ as well as their new RSS feed to keep your reader nourished.

http://globalhealthideas.org/feed/

Right now, they are live blogging the Global Health Council conference in Washington, D.C.

Check out some of the recent action

Global Health Council (GHC36): Trust & social desirability in m-health

Global Health Council (GHC36): No such thing as “HIV in Africa”

GHC36: Discovering New Strategies Using Proven [mHealth] Technologies

and a recent MIT spinoff!! Global Health Startup: SHE Innovates for Reproductive Health

Dr. Kris Olson featured in Scientific American

2009-05-18T11:16:00.002-05:00

Dr. Kris Olson, who leads CIMIT's Global Health Initiative, just got featured in Scientific American 10: Guiding Science for Humanity. SciAm does a pleasant, if brief overview, of a physician who's at the forefront of changing the way we develop technologies for patients in developing countries.

From Scientific American:

One colleague told the Boston Globe that Olson is “The Man” when the topic turns to lifesaving technologies for the developing world. Last year Olson and the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT)—a nonprofit consortium of Boston teaching hospitals and engineering schools—moved ahead with a program to demonstrate the effectiveness of $7 resuscitators, tubes through which a medical worker exhales into a newborn’s mouth. The program started after the 2004 South Asian tsunami. Since then, about 500 midwives in Aceh, Indonesia, have been trained to use the technology.

If want to learn more, go to CIMIT GHI. They even have a Facebook group.

D-Lab Health Update: May 9th at the MIT Museum

2009-04-25T14:47:00.003-05:00

Where: MIT Museum
When: May 9, 2009
What: D-Lab Project Presentations including D-Lab Health

Our students have decided to address a group of multidisciplinary challenges they encountered in Nicaragua. Despite the awesome weather in Boston this weekend, they are furiously designing and prototyping in the lab to meet their deadlines.

What we expecting: We have devices that address issues in pulmonary drug delivery for the rural situations, post-operative infection control solutions, glucose monitoring, and novel centrifuge designs to enable accessible diagnostic procedures in developing world laboratories.

We'll keep you up to date!

Unite for Sight conference @ Yale

2009-04-19T09:55:00.001-05:00

> I am at the Unite for Sight conference. A last minute registration +
> road trip with fellow D-Labbers led us to New Haven for the weekend.
>
> Some highlights
>
> - Appropriate surgical devices from BD (next post)
> - no wifi so it's difficult to blog
> - lots and lots of people!!!
> - Yale is prettier than MIT (but they don't let you bring drinks
> inside the buildings)
> - Blogging on the iPhone leaves much to be desired
>

Win $5,000: Designing for Better Health Competition

2009-03-28T12:48:00.004-05:00

This is a fantastic opportunity for our readers.

The deadline for submission of entries is April 1, 2009. The three best entries win $5,000 each. For more details on the competition, please visit http://www.changemakers.com/en-us/designingforbetterhealth

Ashoka’s Changemakers and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation have launched a global search for “nudges” – innovative little pushes that help people make better decisions for their own health and the health of others.

This year, the focus of this open forum competition is health---and there's only 4 Days left to Enter!

Full Disclosure: I am a judge in the competition. And naturally, I've love to see some really good entries.

D-Lab Health @ MIT

2009-03-28T11:33:00.007-05:00

We have been incredibly busy this year. Starting today, I'm catching up to share what we've been up to. The blog has never really been about us and I kinda like that. Despite that, let me share...

Announcing D-Lab Health:

Medical Technology for the Developing World

I am teaching a new course we designed over the last few months called D-Lab Health. It's a new offering from the D-Lab family of classes. If you are not familiar with D-Lab then go to their website and catch up on some articles here and here. It's a cluster of MIT's academic offerings for the developing world under the leadership of Amy Smith, Senior Lecturer at the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering.

The idea is create the next crop of little devices that could so I can blog about them. Maybe I can give the students credit for blogging about them (noted).

All kidding aside, what are aiming to train students to design the next set of medical devices for the developing world. This is what I do for a living at MIT and we thought it would be fantastic to show students who are already interested in appropriate technology how to go through the process as well.

Being a D-Lab class, our aim is to get them to do hands-on work as soon as possible. So we devised a series of training kits that could cycle the students through a series of medical technologies in at pretty good clip. Shown below for instance is the Drug Delivery Kit. Students were able to get acquainted with drug delivery technologies and make complete some initial design excercises.
The complete list of kits includes: Mobile telephony, Surgical instrumentation, diagnostics, microfluidics, imaging, and vital signs. The microfluidics has been incredibly popular for the students. They technology is certainly buzzing around scientific circles and it gives them access to very early stage hardware in which they can contribute their own designs and hacks.

Finally, after 8 weeks of cycling through technology and teaching them our approach to global health technology, we take them to Nicaragua for a week. In fact, they are down there right now and while we intended to have a live-blog going on at http://dlabhealth.blogspot.com/ , I think they have been too busy to be stuck in front of a computer (see Fig 1). The goal of the trip is to be able to spot local innovation, assess local challenge, and create a portfolio of problems by which they can design better device solutions.

More pictures to follow on the trip.

The D-Lab Health students travel back to MIT on Monday and we are very excited to begin Phase II of the class. This will involve applying the D-Lab design process to begin prototypes and understanding the nuances of medical device product development for these countries. We're excited!

For more information go to the D-Lab site.

You can also access to course pages and the entire set of materials in our Stellar page here. MIT is very open about and we are more than happy to contribute. If you have problems accessing anything, just leave a comment below.

XoutTB gets colors

2009-02-24T11:38:00.003-05:00

XoutTB is a one of the projects underway at the Little Devices That Could Lab at MIT (ok, it's called something else). We have covered the technology in the past when reviewing therapy compliance for both infectious disease and chronic conditions. Technology Review was nice enough to cover the technology again. The story in the March issue also sports a new shot of the latest iteration of the actual diagnostic.

One of new things is a suggestion by Rachel Glennester: colors. Dr. Glennester is the Executive Director fo the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at MIT. Since there is a specific sequence of diagnostics that the patient has to report, the addition of colors adds another way to randomize the sample and provides some variety to the user.

More at Technology Review

Spotlight on Brazil's Emerging Biotech Players

2009-01-17T17:33:00.002-05:00

A report published last year in Nature Biotechnology points to the healthy growth of Brazilian biotechs against the backdrop of emerging players in India, China and South Africa.

Of the main author's of the paper, Dr. Peter A. Singer, states that "One thing is clear: when you think of biotechnology, its no longer just San Francisco, Boston, London and Tokyo. It's also Hyderabad, Shanghai, and Sao Paulo. While in the emerging economies it is still in it's adolescence, biotechnology is no longer the sole hegemony of the rich world. Biotechnology innovation is becoming globalized."

The paper covers 19 case studies of Brazilian-owned private health biotech companies and four public research groups. Unlike it's Indian and Chinese counterparts, the Brazilian case studies point to a focus to find affordable health technology for it's domestic population. While there is still no Pelé for biotech, there's several contenders.

"What you call a neglected disease, I call a business opportunity," said Fernando Kreutz, president of Porto Alegre based FK Biotecnologia. That type of optimism is what is needed to stay ahead of the investment opportunity curve. For Stateside investment firms not paying attention, firms like FK and diagnostics maker Katal Diagnostics, who makes a $25 TB test to replace the $150 version, represent real opportunities where development meets entrepreneurship and results in benefits for all both patients and investors. I don't want to play an armchair investment manager, but it's not hard to conclude that those who react to the current economic climate by circling the wagons and staying within our borders will miss out against those who choose to diversify abroad.

The paper's press release notes some of the accomplishments of the Brazilian industry:

Notable products in the pipeline of various companies include:

several monoclonal antibodies for cancer treatment (Recepta Biopharma, of São Paulo);
a recombinant protein for treating melanoma as well as anti-hypertensive and an analgesic peptide – both isolated from snake venom (COINFAR, of São Paulo); and
fetal, neonatal and adult stem cell therapies for cardiac disease, type I diabetes and neonatal hypoxia (Cryopraxis, Rio de Janeiro).

as well as some barriers to escalation:

A patent regime in desperate need of reform.

- Seven year wait period for patent processing

- Laws against IP protection of key biotech tools such as recombinant versions of proteins found in nature

- The national regulatory agency's final word on patented pharmaceutical products based on public access

Regulatory issues

- Lack of practical product development and manufacturing experience by regulators

- Long delayed in ethics approvals for clinical trials

- Complex navigation of biosafety and biodiversity rules

Human resources

- University centric academic models of research have yet to effectively transfer human resources specifically tailored to the health biotech sector

- Private enterprise are still working on ways to match career incentives systems currently found in academia and government sponsored research programs

We'll keep an eye of for the South African research paper and try to come up with a nice comparative review for our readers.

Little Social Venture Start-Ups That Could: Day 1

2008-12-24T18:30:00.006-05:00

Every day, up to the end of the month, we’ll profile one group that proves that global impact can come in small, energetic packages to help communities around the world.

We’ll kick things off with a veritable engine of developing world research that is igniting scientific exploration among developing world scientists: Seedings Labs.

The Cambridge social enterprise collects laboratory equipment academic and private sector research labs in the U.S., sorts, refurbishes it when necessary, and ships it to scientists who have passed the Seeding Labs selection criteria. Under the leadership of Echoing Green fellow, Nina Dudnick, the group has grown from a student-run outfit at Harvard to an independent technology transfer powerhouse.

Their mission has multiple benefits in different flavors:

Greening Science: They are reducing the burden of having to discard surplus laboratory equipment by giving it second tour of duty in labs around the world.
Democratizing Research: They are creating a generation of scientists that are home-grown, spurring local and unique research pathways, and opening the science education for students.
Reversing the Brain Drain: It’s empowering scientists who would otherwise not go back to their countries after receiving advanced training in the West.
Sustaining Discovery and the Next Great Minds Behind Them: This is not your weekend lab garage sale. By mapping their database of emerging research with a real-time inventory system, they can optimize shipments to the best candidates for cutting edge research in far corners of the earth.

How YOU can HELP!

Back them with your checkbook. All our featured start-ups have real expenses behind their fantastic stories. Send Seedings Labs some Holiday cheer and when one of their scientists makes Nature, you’ll feel like your own private Wellcome Trust.
Sign up to volunteer: If you want to see the operation first hand, contact Seeding Labs for volunteer opportunities. Packing boxes full of PCR machines and flow cytometers will energize the geek inside you on a Saturday morning
Spread the Word: Do you work in a lab that has some extra lab equipment looking for a new home? Talk to your boss and show them how Seeding Labs can find a new home in an exotic location. Your corporate social responsibility committee will be the coolest kids in town.

More at Seedings Labs

Off-roading to save babies!

2008-12-16T22:18:00.004-05:00

The "car parts incubator", a project of our colleague - Dr. Kris Olson - was featured in the New York Times. Kris was also the subject of a Boston Globe profile describing his other projects.

This is a neo-natal incubator built entirely from parts scavenged from an automobile. The prototype featured here used parts from a Toyata4Runner.

One of the important learnings here is that the best way to sustainably implement technology-based solutions in the developing world is to include durable mechanisms of distribution and local technical support, very early in the design and development process.

Have SMS, Will Operate :)

2008-12-09T09:31:00.000-05:00

I thought I had read everything involving mobile phones and global health applications. We've covered cell phones as surgical lights, as health information companions, diagnostic and compliance platforms, etc.

I've never come across the cell phone as a surgical coaching aide. That the experience of Dr. David Nott from Médecins Sans Frontières during a risky life-saving arm amputation of a Congolese boy. Thanks for quick thinking (and thumbs) Dr. Nott received step-by-step instructions from his friend Professor Meirion Thomas back in London via SMS on how to perform a forequarter amputation.

The BBC interviews Dr. Nott:

Hat tip to Medgadget

Swiping for Health: Utah Researchers unveil diagnostic possibilities

2008-12-08T22:10:00.003-05:00

Scientists Marc Porter and Michael Granger from the University of Utah have devised a method that takes advantage of a phenomenon known as giant magnetoresistance (GMR) to detect various disease markers. GMR is a Nobel prize winning discovery that has been known for 20 years:

Magnetoresistance is the change in a material's resistance to electrical current when an external magnetic field is applied to the material. That change usually is not more than 1 percent. But some multilayer materials display a change in resistance of as much as 80 percent. That is giant magnetoresistance.

Porter and Granger created a prototype reader that uses this phenomenon to detected changes in GMR caused by the presence of spots along the sensor. By swiping the sensor along the GMR reader, the sequence of spots (arguably the presence of some pathogen) creates a unique signature that gets interpreted as a diagnostic identifier. The device is currently PC sized but the team is working on miniaturizing the components for portability.

This is a pretty interesting approach to diagnostics and I wonder if it offers an alternative to the advances of lap on a chip technology, or if will become another form of diagnostic vacuum tubes.

More at Eureka Alert

Little Devices in the Wind: Part II

2008-12-08T21:56:00.006-05:00

Some time ago we featured a series of mini wind turbines by a group of researchers in Hong Kong. A great follow up is the Febot which combines a single AA-battery socket with a mini turbine to make a single charging station that sticks on the side of a window. They should make a version that can stick to your bike handlebars.

More at Yanko Design

Malaria Vaccine Launched

2008-12-08T21:43:00.003-05:00

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded the development of a series of vaccine candidates against Malaria. The results are coming in from Burkina Faso, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania and they show that one candidates to be 30 to 50% effective. That may be a little too low to make a huge impact. The investment seems to be paying off in a step in the right direction though.

More at Foreign Policy

The History and Science of LEDs

2008-12-08T21:24:00.002-05:00

The Appropriate technology gurus at AIDG have a wonderful collection of LED videos that shows the history behind the ubiquitous light source, and a series of tutorials on a DIY LED. Sounds like a weekend project.

More at AIDG

3D Printing from Paper and Glue: The Mcor Matrix 3D printer

2008-11-09T11:03:00.003-05:00

File under: Christmas wishlist

According to Engadget, UK company Mcor has cranked out an affordable attempt at 3D printing that uses A4 paper and glue to produce rapid prototypes. I had to read this several times, but they use regular paper which gets cut up into bits and then glued to produce the results above. I'll say this is going to be invaluable for our HLab network real soon. The machines are expected to hit the States in 2009.

Their take:

We wouldn't go so far as to say that 3D printers are growing tired, but we are growing short on patience waiting for a commercial version that the average joe / jane can afford. Thankfully, Mcor is up to the challenge, recently delivering its Matrix to the UK and gearing up to bring it to other parts of the world in 2009. Put simply, this carving creature uses traditional A4 paper and PVA glue to create objects like the ones you see above. Throw in a nice, sharp blade and a little bit of computational prowess, and you've got yourself one wicked 3D printer with running costs "up to 40 times less" than competitors.

Thanks to Engadget

What we've been up to

2008-11-01T18:10:00.008-05:00

We're back everyone. After a long stretch of work that included some exciting and blog worthy moments, I've finally caught up with my RSS reader and Blogger to bring you more consistent posts.

We have been simply too busy to blog, which is a shame, because it's been the "good busy" type of busy. We've been awash with devices and great people who are more interested than ever in the convergence of medical technology and international development. That means more LTDC posts than ever in the coming weeks. While this is certainly not an IIH blog, I might as well explain what IIH (and by extension myself) have been up to.

Last week, CIMIT held their annual Innovation Congress which featured an Exploratorium which prominently featured global health medical technologies by the CIMIT Global Health Initiative spearheaded by Dr. Kris Olson and his crack team of innovation specialists [shown at left demonstrating their car parts incubator], as well as IIH technologies (thanks CIMIT!) working under the same tent (or thatch roof...)

We pulled allnighters trying to get newer prototypes delivered, last minute machining, and 3 am diagnostic reactions to make a good showing at the event. By listening to the crowd, it seems our team achieved that.

The week before CIMIT, we were invited to participate in the last session of MIT's Center for Biomedical Innovation's "Critical Elements of a "Learning Healthcare System" workshop, which featured a poster session on global health. We saw our friends at X Prize, M-Lab (MIT's Mobility Lab which designs mobility solutions for the developing world), the BAMM lab's CD4 microfluidic technology, and the other IIH, Innovators in Health which invented the uBox and uPhone telemedical systems for tuberculosis compliance.

Throughout this time, we were delivered the news that Interamerican Bank for Development is going to support us to bolster our collaboration with our Nicaraguan partners, CIES (Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios de la Salud) and CARE Nicaragua. The support will accelerate our collaboration with this dynamic organizational duo by deploying a set of field ready biomedical learning kits that will allow Nicaraguan innovators to come up with their own medical technology innovations. Check out the Scidev scoop here.

Beyond all this, we owe you updates on Joost Bonsen's Development Ventures and their great line up of startups to tackle the Millenium Challenges, my field notes from the upcoming Duke conference on Bioengineering Global Health, and another round of devices from the CIMIT event.

Seen and Heard

2008-10-19T21:55:00.002-05:00

Another cool conference (or unconference) that I am missing: the first Open Sustainability Network unconference. Appropedia's Lonny Grafman told me about it and I'm sure they've come up with some great stuff over the last two days.

Technology, Health and Development Blog has a great article on the future of M-money.

Wired has a great wiki on how to take microscopic photos using a digital camera.

According to the PSD Blog, Gartner has some ideas on the future of microinsurance, the scheme that aims to create a new insurance segment at affordable prices. We may finally be able to get a reimbursement code for those agricultural prosthetics.

Congrats to Amy Smith on Winning Popular Mechanics Breakthough Award!

2008-10-19T18:18:00.002-05:00

Popular Mechanics just awarded MIT's own Amy Smith with a Breakthrough Award for her pioneering work in bringing technology to developing countries.

The Secret Life Bees: Diagnostics

2008-10-19T17:21:00.003-05:00

Artist Susana Soares is creating a series of beautiflly crafted chambers that collect air samples, or breath samples. Her BEE'S project builds on bee's acute odor perception. In my book, these a wonderful example of good elegant design that can have wonderful apps in the developing world. No electronic noses, or fancy micromechanical systems, or complex diagnostic arrays: just a handful of dutiful bees trained to be attracted to something which produces a yes/no response.

Another company is working on using the bees as portable explosives detectors.

This reminds of a previous project funded by the World Bank to use trained rats to smell and detect TB in samples. I like the Soares approach more though, after all, no one's put a rat on a cereal box design yet.

More at Proto

CIMIT Innovation Congress 2008

2008-09-28T11:24:00.002-05:00

Dates: October 28-29, 2008
Location: Back Bay Events Center, 200 Berkeley Street
Boston, MA

CIMIT, which stands for Center for Integration of Medicine & Innovative Technology, is a unique consortium of hospitals and research labs in the Boston area. It is holding it's annual Innovation Congress which will include their Exploratorium featuring a dedicated section to Global Health. If you are in the Boston area, watch for IIH and LTDC innovations in the area including the XoutTB System, an incubator for the developing world by team led by Dr. Kris Olson, ClickDiagnostics, and several other devices and the innovators behind them.

Be sure to register early at
CIMIT

MIT's Development Ventures

2008-09-27T19:20:00.001-05:00

If you read this blog, it would be hard for you not to know about MIT's D-Lab. What could be forgiven is that you may not know about the newest newest member in the D-Lab family of classes: MIT's Development Ventures.

Development Ventures (DV) is an exploratory developmental entrepreneurship seminar on founding, financing, & building viable ventures in developing nations and emerging regions. DV is a member of the larger D-Labs family of classes addressing Development-Design-Dissemination at MIT. Since 2001 we have challenged students to use business methods to tackle the UN Millennium Development Goals by crafting enduring, scalable, and economically viable solutions to problems faced by at least One Billion people worldwide.

This is the 7th year the class is offered, spinning out about 12 real world companies focused on international development challenges. Under the careful guidance of Joost Bonsen and Sandy Pentland, the class, taught in the heart of the MIT Media Lab, combined top flight technologists with saavy business strategies that are incredibily informed about doing business in emerging economies.

I'm going to be attending the class all semester and hope to give you some weekly insights as I learn from the next crop of companies addressing the millenium development goals.

More at MIT

Indian Innovators on the Discovery Channel

2008-09-27T18:59:00.001-05:00

I really have to catch up on my posts, and AIDG's Blog never misses a step. The latest posts include

Indian Appropriate Technology Innovators

and an interesting article on the NYTimes on the "factory frontier" of India and the plight of farmers fighter the transformation of their crop land.

MIT's D-Lab Founder Amy Smith on Popular Mechanics

2008-09-27T18:52:00.002-05:00

Popular Mechanics has a wonderful article on Professor Amy Smith, founder of D-Lab, and orchestrator of any array of international development technologies at MIT.

For those of us who get a close up view of her work at MIT, the article provides a nice reminder that technology for development can and will make a difference one life at a time. Professor Smith is a pioneer who is making that happen.

Hat tip to AIDG

More at Popular Mechanics

No Fedex, No problem: GPS-enabled robot airplanes transport your lab samples from the middle of nowhere

2008-09-18T20:13:00.010-05:00

I totally want one of one these.

According to the fine folks at Medgadget and Gizmodo, these GPS-guided model airplanes carry lab samples from remote areas to a central lab.

Now, I really don't care if UPS is available, I want my swab sample sent Predator style.

Open Source Infectious Disease Reporting

2008-09-18T20:13:00.002-05:00

TriSano promises to do away with the flurry of faxes doctors are currently using (are you kidding me?) to report specific conditions that could point to a larger public health concern. The name comes from
Tri is a prefix meaning three. Tri represents the collaboration between local, state and federal entities. It depicts the primary disciplines of public health: epidemiology, biostatistics and health services. Tri also refers to the epidemiological triad of people, place, and time.

Sano is an adjective meaning promoting good health.

There's an interesting white paper here: http://www.csinitiative.com/downloads/CSIWhitepaper5-8.pdf

and a more comprehensive post at Medgadget

Neat Stuff Round Up

2008-08-04T18:26:00.002-05:00

LTDC has been hit or miss lately because the author is working on stuff but not writing enough about it. To make up for it, we'll rely on a massive link drop covering what the health superstars at THD Blog are up to:

Th 60s: We have not succumbed to pollution and chemicals, but Rachel Carson warned us about it. As the Berlin Wall went up, so did the Peace Corps! The CCCP sent Yuri to Space and the USA followed with their own astronaut...and the Foreign Assistance Act was launched.

A comprehensive review of the Global Health Council meeting

A Global Health Video that made the Top 10 List at TED

Mosquirix - A new vaccine for Malaria by Glaxo: $100 Million in R&D, 16,000 children in a trial over 7 countries. The target data for launch is 2011.

Closer to home: MIT's Innovations in Technology, Governance and Globalization is free until August 30th. This is a great journal and I highly recommend it. More importantly, don't miss Aman and Jaspal's Aurolab article found here.

And for the mobilephiles our there a roundup of mobile phones in global health

Another human-powered ambulance

2008-08-04T06:43:00.000-05:00

When did this

become this

Medgadget highlights a design from Yanko Design that propels this ambulance by pedal and solar power aimed at resource poor areas.

Spotlight on MIT's new Innovations in International Health: LTDC is Institutionalized)

2008-07-15T18:19:00.006-05:00

It's almost been a month since my last post. We have been incredibly busy with a whole new program that aims to nurture, discover, invent, and launch the next little devices that could. So hopefully my absence is justified by the some of the offline project you'll read about soon.

MIT's International Development Initiative has launched Innovations in International Health. IIH is a collaborative research program that spans across MIT Departments and brings in partners from around the country and around to world to create a rich multidisciplinary environment to launch medical technology for the next four billion.

I'll let you visit the site iih.mit.edu to learn more.

Back to work for me, but I'm back with the program.

Accidental medical device of the month: The Taser

2008-06-01T12:38:00.002-05:00

This one is better than the superglue for toothaches covered a few months back. The WSJ Health blog describes the case of policeman who had to tase man while he was in the ER (it's better than it sounds).

Turns out the Taser jolted his heart back into a normal rhythm.
more at WSJ.com

Combating Cervical Cancer with Cameraphones

2008-06-01T06:40:00.001-05:00

This is the start of a small series covering the projects at MIT's D-Lab II, Information and Communications Technologies for Development, or ICT4D short. The results of the semester-long class resulted applications for microfinance, telemedicine, mobile disaster management technoloogies, and rapid pneumonia response systems.

The following is a video highlighting efforts in their project for detection and treatment of cervical cancer.

From their project page

We are developing the process that would facilitate the use of mobile device to transport images taken by nurses at health care centers (point-of-care) in rural Zambia to a server in Lusaka where doctors can access the images in order to provide expert advice on cervical lesions. We would like to explore the use of this approach to facilitate a scalable national cervical cancer screening program. Finally, we would like to design a platform that would allow transfer of the images directly to an electronic medical record database for archiving.

Making sure you eat your Wheaties (and take your meds)

2008-05-31T17:55:00.006-05:00

Patient compliance is a $30 billion dollar a year problem according to major pharmaceutical associations (DataMonitor). The challenge is universal, everyone is susceptible to procrastination regardless of GDP. Patient compliance has uneven consequences in different patient populations. We covered a couple of technologies aimed at developing world patients fighting TB. These are low-cost reporting and monitoring technologies that take advantage of widespread cellphone networks. One of the rationales for their use is to prevent the onset of a much more complicated disease. If they become too sick, their public health resources cannot support further treatment.

Closer to these shores, patient compliance takes on a different rationale. Insurers and healthcare sponsors seek savings through preventative medicine.

This has launched what I will term the pillbox technology: simple dispensers that report usage of a dispensing mechanism. Essentially, you get a reminder, a convenient dispensing mechanism, and the time and frequency of the dispensing is reported to a central location. The approach is not limited to pillboxes. It has also been expended to inhalers and glucose meters.

Pillboxes: Gaming the System
A major flaw in this approach is reliance on the Honor System. This is going to make me really unpopular in some circles: trusting on people to behave themselves all on their own is a risky strategy. Some patients require a high level of monitoring to ensure compliance since their life is on the line. Forget about taking your multivitamin everyday (I forget to)---if you don't take your full course of TB meds, you're not going to make it. And if you do, you're going develop multiple drug resistant TB. If you do, and your national healthcare system can't provide, you're not going to make it.

Enter the Adult Supervision Brigades...

The second method goes further and ensures that the medication has actually been taken. We'll call this Detect-and-Report. Detecting metabolized drugs in patients such as University of Florida spinoff Exhale’s breathalyzer technologies enhances compliance by ensuring that drugs have been taken. For some this may be a little too Big Brother, but in the end, one can argue that it’s for your own good. After all, a much higher level of compliance enforcement would be experienced that same patient is hospitalized.

Exhale’s technology is being used to ensure compliance in patients undergoing a HIV/AIDS trials. The noninvasive test relies on adding GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) biomarker tags that are detected on an electronic monitor---just like an alcohol breathalyzer. There is no word on pricing, but it could easily pay for itself if can enhance the confidence of a clinical trial.

On the other end of the spectrum of detection-and-monitor technologies is the XoutTB system which I have described earlier. At a cost of a penny a day, the system relies on metabolic testing integrated with a mobile reporting platform.

The recent development of detect-and-report technologies means that the jury is still out on whether the honor system works as well as active detection and reporting systems. We’ll stay tuned.

In the meantime eat your Wheaties, take your statins, and rafampin, and all those little bottles behind the mirror.

More on Exhale in their website.
Stay tuned for information on XoutTB or get in touch with us directly.

Foldit: Competitive Protein Folding

2008-05-31T15:48:00.003-05:00

Most of us are familiar with the Fold@Home project that allows millions of computers to share spare computing cycles to solve protein folding problems. If your screensaver is not set to provide Fold@Home some spare computing cycle, you are not alone.
Move aside Celtics: enter the league of Competitive Protein Folding.

The idea behind David Baker's project, called FoldIt is to employ battalions of gamers to provide what an army of CPUs can't: smarts. Algorithms are great, but they can't match the puzzle-solving abilities of a person dead set on solving a problem. Baker would know a thing or two about algorithms. His research launched the Rosetta@Home project which employed distributed computing power to solve proteins.

I like the concept because it combines the flattening power of the internet, the elegance of distributed computing, and a really cool gaming interface. Watch the video.

Innerspace News: Tiny boats delivery meds to your body

2008-05-27T22:39:00.000-05:00

This drug delivery method is elegant, it may very make it to the a global health application one day.

Cheng Luo, an engineer from the University of Texas at Arlington, has developed a tiny device that uses differences in the surface tension of to propel it in water. The hope is that one day, they can take the concept and create micro submarines for delivering drugs inside the blood stream.

More at Physorg.com

Ryan's Bill: Austism Insurance Bill Passes

2008-04-01T20:52:00.002-05:00

We focus so much on global health in this blog it is easy to miss sight of those underserved closer to home. South Carolina resident Lorri Unumb can celebrate a small victory towards raising her son Ryan, who has autism. It turns out that most insurance companies won't cover autism therapy. This is ludicrous---you get hurt in a car wreck and you can go get physical therapy to get your walking muscle memory back. You suffer some sort of mental impairment and it's considered "educational therapy". Well, thanks to Unumb, insurers in South Carolina can no longer take cover behind this logic.

"I've met so many other moms who were doing the best they could, and I just wanted to say to them, 'You know, an hour a week of speech therapy for your child is never going to make him better,' " the mother of three says.
"But I didn't want to tell them what they needed is 40 hours a week of therapy, because there's nothing they can do to buy that."
Nothing they can do because most medical insurance policies generally don't cover autism treatment, and it's too expensive for many parents to afford out of pocket. Ryan's therapy costs between $70,000 and $80,000 a year. That's Lorri Unumb's entire salary.

Well, it didn't hurt that Lorri Unumb is both a lawyer and a law professor. She soon turned a sour situation into a solution that helps her family countless others. Professor Unumb, way to go!

More at CNN

Neat Stuff Roundup

2008-03-25T04:24:00.002-05:00

Google for Non-Profits
Anne Swift on universities as entrepreneurship ecosystems
The next 11 BRICs according to Goldman Sachs
Testing vaccines in a jar
Foreign Policy on the Digital Divide

World TB Day

2008-03-24T11:20:00.003-05:00

Thanks to Aman at THD Blog, I am informed that today is World TB Day. I'm not sure how you treat this: "Happy TB Day", "May you and yours have a wonderful TB Day" do not seem appropriate.

THD by way of Christine at Families USA has featured an anti-TB game:

In response*, my group at MIT has developed the XoutTB diagnostic paper microfluidic toolset. It aims to keep patients on track with their meds at a cost of a penny a day. X out TB program is currently under continued development at MIT with the assistance of partners in the Ministry of Health in Nicaragua, the InterActive Research and Development group in Karachi, Pakistan, and the guidance of the Poverty Action Center. Funding has been provided by the IDEAS Competition (Lemelson Award in International Technology) and private donations.

*In response to TB, not TB Day, but it is fitting that I make the announcement on LTDC on March 24, don't you think?

2008 NCIIA Annual Conference: Wrap up

2008-03-24T10:12:00.007-05:00

3 : Hours in the ER before my DC flight due to Aerovax prototype airborne shrapnel landing in my left eye
7:30 : Scheduled departure from Logan to Dallas on Tuesday
5 : Number of liquid crystal displays on the Airtran Embraer Jet taking me to DC connection
1 : Number of check engine lights that rendered the LCDs useless and grounding the flight
2:30 : Arrival time into Dallas the next afternoonDespite the misadventures of travel, I left the 2008 NCIIA Conference wiser and humbled, having met an oustanding group of individuals and institutions working on fascinating products, educational strategies, and global challenges. I'm going to provide some detailed notes at the expanded Conferences and Lectures version of LTDC.

A quick preview:

Paul Polack on Design for the Other 90% (it's not just the museum exhibit, it's going to change the face of business and products for folks in emerging markets)
Sir Ken Robinson on creativity.
The Small Engines group from the Global Innovation Center in Energy, Health and Environment at Colorado State University (guys I need a link here).
Baylor University's efforts of transforming coconuts into Home Depot products

More after coffee break (Dallas has a severe deficit of Starbucks, though).

TB Compliance the "smart pillbox" way

2008-03-18T01:41:00.003-05:00

Those nerds at the Massachusetts Institute for Technophobes have done it again by inventing the "uBox" - a souped up version of the humble pillbox, that tracks how often people take their medication and improves compliance with drug dosage. The device comes with a USB that enables healthcare workers to plug into the pillbox and download the compliance record. Read more..

DIY drilling: Neurosurgery in the developing world

2008-03-18T01:36:00.004-05:00

Who knew that a Bosch drill could have so many uses? When working for the National Health Service, Marsh uses a £30,000 compressed-air medical drill, but he uses a £30 drill with the standard medical drill bits when operating in less ideal settings in Ukraine. How does he ensure patient safety? "The traditional way... by talking to them throughout the operation." Read more...

Thanks to Kevin MD via Medgadget

Telemicroscopy

2008-03-18T01:24:00.003-05:00

The folks in the Blume Center for Developing Economics have devised a nifty little device that can provide 50x magnification by adding $50 in off-the-shelf components to a cellphone camera. Called the 'Cellscope', this initiative "extends the reach of modern microscopy by turning the camera of a standard cell phone into a clinical-quality microscope. With a magnification of 5-50X, cell-phone microscopy will enable visualization of patient samples critical for disease diagnosis. Images captured by health workers on a microscope-equipped cell phone could be annotated, organized, and transmitted to medical experts at major medical centers for analysis and recommendation. Preliminary work has demonstrated the technical feasibility of this ‘telemicroscopy’ concept." Read More about it here or visit the project page.

Hat tip to Medgadget

The OR Channel: TV dinners are never gonna look quite the same

2008-03-05T16:44:00.004-05:00

When I was 3 or 4 year old, I ran into my grandfather's collection of 35mm projection slides of surgical procedures that he used to teach his students in medical school. I remember that the images were fascinating (at least for me) and left an indelible mark on my view of the human body: Try to understand a 3 year old who goes "eyes, nose, ears, hands, feet, liver, pancreas, vein." Fast forward a long time and instead of becoming a vascular surgeon like Pepe, I grew up to design devices that he could have used. Problem is that I am out of 35 mm projection slide discovery opportunities...so I ran into this today:

OR Live is a website offerings video streams of 600 different surgical procedures.
Each procedure comes from different institutions so you can get a good sense of how each procedures varies by physician and hospital.

Play doctor online using CureHunter

2008-03-03T13:06:00.004-05:00

Before you send me your letters, don't try this at home without adult supervision and please don't start Googling your symptoms. Okay, now the fun part.

CureHunter is an online web service that provides access to medical literature in a straight forward interface. So next time you are arguing about the performance of Cimetidine and Omeprazole, do yourself a favor and go to CureHunter's Mobile site. Type in a disease or a drug, and it will tell you what is the generally accepted therapy. I know, it takes an MD to really figure out what a person has, etc. etc. This is a tool and timely one.

Healthcare workers with GPRS access will find it invaluable.

More at Medgadget

A Cancer Breathalyzer

2008-03-03T12:56:00.003-05:00

Researchers at Swansea Univrsity in Wales are developing a method for detecting cancer and other diseases using your breath. Medgadget reports that Dr. Masood Yousef and his research team have been working on improved volatile marker-based diagnostics. This has been tried before but the improved analytics are bringing them closer to being a reality. The impact for global health could be huge if the costs of the test remain reasonable (no word on pricing yet). Imaging a scenario where a nomadic patient can be given a test result that would usually take a week to come back from the lab—and an additional two weeks to go back and track the person. I'll keep my tabs on this one. Dr. Yousef, if you are reading this, we'd love to chat and introduce you to some cool cellphone technology we're developing with these types of technologies in mind.

Dr Yousef [Dr Masood Yousef, senior research assistant in the Welsh Centre for Printing and Coating at Swansea University -ed] believes that the breath test will provide a more convenient and rapid method for diagnosing serious diseases than blood or urine analysis, and will require minimal medical intervention.

He said: "Breath samples are much easier to collect than blood and urine, for the patient as much as for the person collecting the sample. They can be collected anywhere by people with no medical training, and there are no associated biohazard risks."

Little Devices That Could @ AAAS

2008-02-10T21:26:00.000-05:00

Our friend Aman at state of the art THD Blog sent us an opportunity to participate in a global health panel at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Boston Sunday February 17, 2008.

So for those of you based in Boston looking for a good excuse to dodge the weather on a Sunday afternoon, come by the Hynes Convention Center this Sunday and say hello.

There will be a discussion on the intersection of global health, technology, and the role of the entrepreneur. We owe the invitation to Usha Balakrishnan, CEO of Cartha, a fledging organization in the business of fostering innovative opportunities for social entrepreneurs and the next generation of thought leaders. Thanks Usha!

As additional incentive, Cat at AIDG has a great preview on all the other panels at AAAS for you to go to.

Smoking will kill 1 billion

2008-02-09T13:07:00.000-05:00

Some devices suck. A recently unveiled WHO report on smoking reveals some shocking stats on cigarettes. According the Bloomberg (as in Mayor Michael) financed report, smoking will kill 1 billion people this century. China, India, and Indonesia will top the list. As these economies mature, and purchasing power increased for consumers, the rise of cigarette purchases will be inevitable.

According to Foreign Policy

While progress has been made in many countries thanks to higher taxes and bans in public places (the unbelievable smoking ban in Paris cafes, for example), smoking is on the rise in the developing world. The WHO projects that one billion people, 80 percent of them in the developing world, will die of smoking-related illnesses by the end of the century if trends continue on their current trajectory.

More after the jump.

Update: Adding insult to injury, the Chinese government wants to encourage smoke-free restaurants during their Olympic Games. The backlash from consumers that insist on smoking have put certain restaurants on the brink of going out of business.

HST 939 is Launched: First Day of Class

2008-02-06T23:34:00.001-05:00

Previously mentioned HST 939 has been launched! I'll be back blogging starting (now) since most of the hard work getting ready for the course is done. There's a nice cross section of students from many different fields (including some students from across the country finding creative ways to get credit for taking the class via telecourse).

more to come in the next few days!
Jose

ABC drama series takes pseudo science to primetime. TV writing reaches a new low.

2008-01-23T21:04:00.000-05:00

ABC is launching a new legal drama revolving around a family with an autistic child. The father is an attorney who starts having second thoughts about defending pharmaceutical companies. After a moment of inspiration, or an overdose of late night infomercials, he decides to sue big pharma for creating vaccines that cause autism.

In other news, the same network will launch a reality series focusing on the aerodynamics of pigs vying for the X Prize.

Frankly, I am not a big fan of railing against corporations, but ABC and parent Disney better provide an honest effort to correct a message that is sure to fan the flames of the vaccine-autism quacks. What is wrong with these people? I realize the writers are on strike, but reverting to an issue that clearly puts children in harms way by convincing more parents that vaccines are wrong is irresponsible. It wipes any type of CSR and save-the-world intentions the companies claims to abide by. For people like myself who try to make vaccines more widely available by either developing delivery technologies, or others who work on actual vaccines, this is a straight up insult.

It's one thing to see a one-time episode of ripped-from-the-headlines plots like in Law and Order. It's another thing to make a complete series whose sole aim of entertaining can undermine years of public health education.

I hope it gets cancelled. I hope it never gets syndicated to other markets, particularly in the developing world, where vaccines are often the most reliable way of securing a child's life. I hope they put back to back Surgeon's General warnings before and after the show. I hope they pledge the a portion of the profits to GAVI. Let's see if they put that in the Annual Report.

Don't send your letters to me, send them to ABC.

More at NYTimes

PS This is our first official rant. :)

Google unleashes massive storage bank for scientists

2008-01-23T15:27:00.000-05:00

According to Wired, the company plans to offer algorithms for searching and visualizing the data sets, as an offshot of their acquisition of Gapminder.

| View | Upload your own

According to Wired, the company plans to offer algorithms for searching and visualizing the data sets, as an offshot of their acquisition of Gapminder.

(Google people) are providing a 3TB drive array (Linux RAID5). The array is provided in “suitcase” and shipped to anyone who wants to send they data to Google. Anyone interested gives Google the file tree, and they SLURP the data off the drive. I believe they can extend this to a larger array (my memory says 20TB).

One of the more interesting details is that they will actually SHIP you a suitcase with 3TB of storage for you to load your data and ship it back. I guess 3TB is not that bandwidth friendly.

More at http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/01/google-to-provi.html

One of the more interesting details is that they will actually SHIP you a suitcase with 3TB of storage for you to load your data and ship it back. I guess 3TB is not that bandwidth friendly.

More at http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/01/google-to-provi.html

It's little, it's (RED), it helps Africa

2008-01-23T15:15:00.001-05:00

Dell just announced that they are teaming up with Microsoft to produce a line of crimson red XPS PC to raise funds under the (Red) program benefiting Africa's fight against AIDS and debt.

The offering will include both laptops and desktops and will net $50 and $80 to the fund respectively.

The XPS M1330 is a nice little machine that I have been seriously looking at. Given the demise of my Sony early this month, it may be time to give these machines another look.

If you would like to make a laptop donation, I'd be happy to receive the hardware and notify Bono that the $50 are in your name.

Full scoop in the NYTimes

LTDC is now 1.

2007-12-13T13:56:00.000-05:00

One year ago this week we started Little Devices That Could to simply exchange information between friends who follow and practice the convergence of international development, health technology, and entrepreneurship.

After 2 or 3 posts, we noticed that many (all 99 countries of you) of you were actually reading (prompting us to check our grammar) the blog on a regular basis.

What started out as a very informal experiment has evolved into a wonderful online experience that includes fascinating technologies. Their impact is surpassed only by the amazing people behind them that make it possible despite all odds. The unexpected surprise for us is the real treat in meeting many of them and realizing that there is a great peer group looking at the world through a similar lens.

I am still not versed in all the blogsphere's jargon. For all those folks who added us to their blogrolls, THANK YOU! Special hats off to Anne, Christine, Cat and Aman!

We're looking towards new opportunities and excellent devices in the next few weeks! Thanks for staying on the LTDC channel, we hope to keep those RSS feeds happy!

On behalf of LTDC, we wish you and yours a safe and Happy Holidays!

LTDC Goes to Graduate School: Harvard-MIT announce HST 939, Designing and Sustaining Technology Innovation for Global Health

2007-12-04T11:01:00.000-05:00

Following a long history at MIT of incredible classes like D-Lab, Developmental Entrepreneurship and S-Lab from Sloan School of Management,the joint program in Health and Technology by Harvard and MIT have announced HST 939: Designing and Sustaining Technology Innovation for Global Health. The class will focus on exploring new ways and avenues of answering global health's most vexing problems at the intersection of business, public health, and disruptive technologies. Hands on participation in real life projects with international community and corporate partners will allow students to experience global health development 2.0 from the start.

The class is the brainchild of HST affiliate Jeff Blander, a social entrepeneur and global health expert, who teamed up with Utkan Demirci, a scientist and inventor at Harvard with a shared focus on global health technologies. Your Truly will participate in the design and instruction of the technology and bottom-up innovation aspects of the class. If my posts have been infrequent lately, I apologize, but the there has been a lot of work to set up some exciting projects which I will be sharing with you shortly.

We are continuing to receive a lot of interest from corporate and foundation sponsors about their own projects and the door is open for continuing collaboration. One of the most exciting aspects of the course is its commitment to cross-institutional collaboration. The current partners include companies, NGOs, and other academic institutions beyond Harvard and MIT. So get ready, in a few months, we'll be highlighting the next little devices that could---and the business report cards that go along with them! Everything starts in Spring 2008, but you can submit your projects now!

RECAP, AWESOME: Medical Technologies, Collaboration, and the New Entrepreneur

2007-11-05T12:59:00.000-05:00

Last week, as announced, TiE held a forum at BU called Medical Technologies, Collaboration, and the New Entrepreneur.

What was supposed to be a talk on how to launch a medical device company (most likely Stateside) turned into a great debate on how to launch "market appropriate technologies" from experienced professionals who have been in the space.

I digested most of the relevant points below if you are interested.

Event Alert: Medical Technologies, Collaboration, and the New Entrepreneur

2007-10-28T21:27:00.000-05:00

TiE is hosting a neat event at Boston University on health technology and how collaborative efforts have launched a generation of life saving products. More at TiE

Check it out tomorrow (register first) and hopefully I run into you.

Panelists

Kristian Olson, MD
Program Leader, Global Health Initiative, Center of Integration of
Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT)

Aaron Sandoski, MBA
Managing Director, Norwich Ventures.

Barry Solomon, PhD
Founder, Circe Biomedical Inc.

P Laxminarain, MBA
Worldwide President, Codman, J&J.

Bernard Haffey, MBA
CEO, NDO Surgical.

Moderator
Jonathan Rosen PhD, MBA
Executive Director, Institute for Technology Entrepreneurship and
Commercialization (ITEC) , Boston University School of Management

When:
Monday, October 29, 2007: 6:30PM – 9:00PM
Networking & Dinner 6:30-7:00PM
Panel Discussion: 7:00-9:00PM

Where:
BU School of Management (4th Floor Executive Leadership Center)
595 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA ("B" Green Line Blanford Street Station)

Neat Stuff Round up

2007-10-28T20:57:00.000-05:00

Interesresting read round up

Harvard Vaccines for the Poor --- Made in China
A WSJ piece on applications of the research of Dr. John J. Mekalanos who has struck a deal with a Chinese company, while ensuring access to developing countries.

Western Union and GSM Association are gearing up for mobile-to-mobile international money transfers

UNICEF video game simulates the realities of living in third world. A collabortion with Microsoft resulted in a game kids (and adults) can play to learn what it's really like to make ends meet in Haiti.

Check out the new World Bank channel on YouTube (I found this)

Bovine Innovations for Computing Power

2007-10-28T20:32:00.000-05:00

A bovine innovation results in a hybrid power for the OLPC. The project's Arjun Sarwal reports that the group that's developing what was formerly known as the $100 Laptop (now it's called XO), is tooling around with a device that you can propel using cow-power. This is awesome. More at Engadget.

Design Challenge: Crutch purse, the LTDC version

2007-10-20T18:34:00.000-05:00

You have a bad fall and all of sudden it becomes so awkward to carry your stuff (cell phone, wallet, laptop, way to many pens and notebooks, textbooks, mp3 player, charger). I am not even going to attempt to describe what our female audience carries but I understand it is often a study in complexity science.

So back the original problem---you're on the mend, and the way to carry your stuff is the Crutch Tote! I don't see room for textbooks, no biggie.

It's easy to see the same challenge apply to a head of household injured and now unable to carry the required items to work. I can live without my mp3 player and the rest of my junk for a few weeks, but if my daily livelihood depends on it, it stops being a matter of convenience.

So here's my challenge for readers who happen to be handy. Come up with a version of the Crutch Tote that addresses requirements for people on the mend who may have to carry items such as trade items, basic paperwork, medicines, and anything you think a citizen of the BOP may want to carry while they are on crutches. Affordable and sustainable design is paramount, as well as a strong sense of style. We'll see if we take it to the next level?

PopTech! 2007: Social Innovation Accelerator

2007-10-20T18:19:00.000-05:00

In news about super cool conferences that I miss, NextBillion reports that the folks in Camden have launched a Social Innovation Accelerator.

Their website offers the following criteria, and will start with a software for HIV+ patients called LifeWindows.

The Accelerator evaluates projects which:
• Embody a highly-differentiated, innovative, multi-disciplinary and potentially world-changing approach to a consequential global problems
• Will benefit from the unique skills of the Pop!Tech network
• Have a high multiple of impact
• Amplify the skill-sets of the social innovators involved in doing the work
• Leverage a “bottom up” or extensible community of participants (through open-source licensing, for example)
• Engage the intended community’s participation in the solution
• Have a clear path to becoming a functioning enterprise
• Can be completed in 24-36 months

Sounds like a great concept following other notable efforts, we'll be following them closely to see what other initiatives they hatch.

Hat tip to NextBillion

More at PopTech! 2007

Have Loctite, Will Fix Tooth (Will not drill!)

2007-10-13T20:37:00.000-05:00

(This one is so awesome that I'm going to post it Spanish, too)

This a real salute to all those bathroom surgeons and backyard mechanic trauma specialists, innovators of things like gasoline, the ultimate sterilizer, and alcohol swabs that go beyond the call of duty.

According to the WSJ, a group of maverick doctors in Bethlemen, PA, treated emergency room patients with acute tooth pain (I-haven't-been-to-the-dentists-in-months-pain-and-now-it-really-hurts-like-hell pain) not with fancy lasers, or ultrasound, or drills, but with superglue!

Okay, so you can't get it at Home Depot, because they don't sell Dermabond. However, the wound closure agent marketed by J&J is a close cousin of superglue and Krazy Glue. They share the key ingredient cyanoacrylate which performs the sticky magic.

...the only thing ER docs can usually do on the spot for patients with dental pain is to give them antibiotics and pain pills, which take hours to work and can be debilitating. He called Dermabond “superior to anything we can provide.”
Because it dries so fast, Dermabond doesn’t present a hazard, Hill said. But it’s only a temporary fix, until a patient can see a dentist. It falls out on its own in a few days. That may be a problem for some people, who wind up in the ER in the first place because they don’t have dental insurance and can’t afford to see the dentist.

More at WSJ

MacArthur "Genius" Grants Announced

2007-09-25T11:57:00.000-05:00

A great list of luminaries have been awarded the latest round of John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Genius grants. Among them, Saul Griffith, co-founder of Squid Labs, Yoky Matsuoka, a developer of advanced prosthetics at the University of Washington, and others. The full list is available at their site. Congratulations!