Microwaves Against Malaria

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The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced that twelve grantees have advanced to the next level of Grand Challenges Explorations (GCE), an initiative that enables researchers worldwide to test unorthodox ideas that address persistent health and development challenges. The grantees will receive additional funding to continue Phase II of their research over a two-year period.

“Finding solutions to persistent global health problems is a difficult, lengthy and expensive process. GCE was designed to tap the innovators of the world by providing resources needed to explore bold ideas that are typically too risky to attract funding through other mechanisms,” said Chris Wilson, director of Global Health Discovery at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “We’re excited to enable further development of novel approaches that can prevent or lessen the burden of diseases that kill or disable millions of the world’s most vulnerable.”

Among projects receiving Phase II funding, Carmenza Spadafora of Panama’s IASI and Jose Stoute of Pennsylvania State University investigate whether malaria can be treated by microwave irradiation.

Grantees who receive Phase II funding will receive up to one million dollars of additional funding over a two-year period.

Fast Company reports: “Malaria drugs are expensive, and the disease is becoming resistant. But nothing can resist microwaves. A new advance might simply explode the parasite inside people’s bodies with a low dose of focused rays. Treatments for malaria, however, have never been a high priority for pharmaceutical companies, and multi-drug resistant malaria is becoming prevalent in Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia, while even the most effective drug combinations are losing their punch. Researchers Carmenza Spadafora and Jose Stoute have now hit upon one treatment that no parasite has ever developed an immunity against, and may never be able to survive: microwaves.”

Read more, via Fast Company.

Sources: Fast Company, Gates Foundation

Principles of Magnetic Levitation and Cell Phone Technology to Be Studied for Malaria Diagnosis Tools

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The Gates Foundation has funded a project at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) that uses the principles of magnetic levitation and cell phone technology to create an inexpensive, portable device to quickly and accurately diagnose malaria outside of the laboratory setting. The GCE received more than 2,500 grant submissions from 100 countries, and selected 88 projects, including that of Ionita Ghiran, MD, an investigator in the Division of Allergy and Inflammation at BIDMC, and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Ghiran has been awarded a $100,000 Grand Challenges Exploration Grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Grand Challenges Exploration (GCE) program funds scientists and researchers worldwide in the pursuit of novel ideas that can break the mold in solving persistent global health challenges.

“GCE winners are expanding the pipeline of ideas for serious global health and development challenges where creative thinking is most urgently needed,” said Chris Wilson, director of Global Health Discovery at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “These grants are meant to spur on new discoveries that could ultimately help save millions of lives.”

Malaria causes nearly 1 million deaths per year throughout developing countries (85 percent of which are children under the age of 5) and parasites are becoming increasingly resistant to anti-malarial drugs, in part due to overdiagnosis.

“The lack of suitable methods of malaria diagnosis makes presumptive treatment often the only available option for local health service providers,” notes Ghiran. To address this challenge, Ghiran, in collaboration with Pierre Striehl, PhD, from the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, developed an antibody-free diagnostic screening device which separates malaria-infected red blood cells from uninfected red blood cells by way of magnetic levitation.

“Our screening device is light-weight, disposable and inexpensive to manufacture,” he notes. The prototype system requires less than a drop of finger-prick blood and a small volume of red-blood-cell friendly buffer containing paramagnetic ions. Diagnostic results can be obtained within a few minutes solely by using a set of permanent magnets immobilized in a plastic structure surrounding a glass or plastic capillary containing the blood. Results are visualized, recorded and stored using a standard camera phone. No additional imaging equipment, or staining reagents are required.

“This method helps fill the need for malarial diagnostic technologies capable of promptly and reliably ascertaining true malarial infections in the field,” says Ghiran. “We hope that this will help prevent the overdiagnosis of malaria and subsequent drug resistance.”

Grand Challenges Explorations is a $100 million initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Launched in 2008, Grand Challenge Explorations grants have already been awarded to nearly 500 researchers from over 40 countries. The grant program is open to anyone from any discipline and from any organization. The initiative uses an agile, accelerated grant-making process with short two-page online applications and no preliminary data required. Initial grants of $100,000 are awarded two times a year. Successful projects have the opportunity to receive a follow-up grant of up to $1 million.

Source: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center