malaria

Ward off malaria -- and look sexy doing it

Malaria nets don't generally grace the pages of Vogue. But that could change, thanks to a couple of inventive Cornell University scientists.

The two, both from Africa, have created a hooded garment embedded with insecticide to ward off mosquitoes infected with malaria, a preventable and curable infectious disease that kills more than 650,000 people a year on the continent, according to the World Health Organization.

The getup consists of a colorful hand-dyed one-piece bodysuit and a mesh cape and hood. While nets treated with insecticide are a common, cost-effective prevention tool in Africa, the Cornellians say their garment can be worn during the day for extra protection. Plus, their fabric's mosquito-repellant properties are extra strong and long-lasting. … Read more

Tracking diseases using Google Maps and cell phones

Many of us have relied on rapid diagnostic tests at one time or another, whether it's testing for pregnancy, blood glucose levels, or strep throat.

But while dropping fluid samples on a small strip for near-instantaneous results is affordable and convenient, reading results using the human eye means there is the potential for, well, human error.

So researchers at UCLA have taken the human out of the equation as much as possible and developed a digital "universal" reader for all rapid diagnostic tests, or RDTs, that requires no translation of results.

In the journal Lab on a … Read more

Origami paper sensor could detect malaria, HIV for 10 cents

Affordable paper sensors aren't exactly new. Think home pregnancy tests. But researchers out of the University of Texas at Austin are pushing (or is it folding?) the envelope with their origami-inspired 3D paper sensor that, thanks to strategic folding, can identify more substances in more complex tests.

Able to be printed at less than a dime a sensor using an ordinary office printer and less than a minute of folding, the origami Paper Analytical Device (which they've dubbed oPAD) "is about medicine for everybody," said Richard Crooks, a chemistry professor who built the sensor with doctoral student Hong Liu, in a school news release.

Liu was first inspired to use origami when he read a paper by Harvard chemist George Whitesides, who is the first to build a 3D microfluidic paper sensor to target biological agents.… Read more

Lab on a chip puts the pressure on a parasite

Researchers in Canada say they've built a device that will help them study changes in red blood cells caused by the most common species of malaria parasites, plasmodium falciparum, which causes the most lethal form of a disease that claims almost a million lives every year.

The microfluidic device, which is just 1 x 2 inches, is not a diagnostic tool but rather a way to test potential treatments--a crucial step in the fight against malaria, which is constantly evolving to develop resistance to drugs.

Typically, human red blood cells squeeze through capillaries that are narrower than the cells … Read more

Lifelens malaria app wins Microsoft 'Imagine Cup' grant

After taking second place in the 2011 Imagine Cup finals, Team Lifelens of the U.S. is one of four teams from around the world to win a $75,000 Imagine Cup grant, Microsoft announced today at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

The Lifelens project is run by students at universities across the country who have been working since November 2010 on an app that can image malaria cells for fast diagnosis right there on the phone, sans Internet.

The premise is straightforward. Apply a blood sample to a slide with a dye that only malaria … Read more

Spare a little computing power to fight malaria

After IBM's Watson computing system defeated two human competitors on Jeopardy this year, it partnered with the nonprofit Scripps Research Institute to direct the tournament prize money toward finding a cure for drug-resistant malaria.

Now all the team is asking for is a little help from around the globe. It's using the World Community Grid, described as a "supercomputer of the people," to use spare computing power from volunteered PCs.

Since the Grid was set up seven years ago, some 575,000 people in more than 80 countries have donated spare computing power from nearly 2 … Read more

Scientists to fight malaria via spermless mosquitoes

Female mosquitoes just don't get to have any fun. They mate only once, lay eggs, and eventually die.

In an effort to combat malaria, researchers at Imperial College London hope to take advantage of the female mosquito's plight--and reduce the mosquito population--by engineering spermless males. They say the key is that the females don't seem able to tell the difference; they still mate with the sterile males and proceed to lay eggs that never hatch.

This is an improvement over previous attempts to engineer sterile males, the team said, because that process often exposed the males to … Read more

U.S. grad students create app to diagnose malaria

It isn't every day that the second-place winner of a competition is as interesting, if not more so, than the first-place winner. But at the national level of Microsoft's 9th annual Imagine Cup, competition is tight, and the team that took second in the software design category Tuesday deserves attention.

Called Team LifeLens, the students from universities across the country developed an app that uses a Samsung Focus running on Windows 7 to photograph blood samples and diagnose malaria. And they've only been working on it since November 2010.

Computer engineering grad student Tristan Gibeau of the University of Central Florida remembers the day he got the algorithm right to get the cell detector running. "I was ecstatic," he says. "I was running around, just so excited."

According to the World Health Organization, almost 800,000 people die from malaria every year, with 90 percent of the deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa. The beauty of the LifeLens app is that it doesn't require Internet access--just the phone, slide, and app. They're also building a case to hold it all.

Gibeau says the lens "is the last part of the puzzle," and that his team lost to first-place winners Team Note-Taker from Arizona State University because it's still buggy on Windows 7. They're currently working with UC Davis and the actual Windows phone team to get it running smoothly. (The prototype used version 6.5.)

The first-place team, by the way, developed Note-Taker, a camera and touch-screen tablet PC allowing users to simultaneously view live video and take typed or handwritten notes on a split-screen interface.

Cell phone activity helps predict spread of malaria

Researchers at the University of Florida are predicting the spread of malaria based on their analysis of more than 21 million cell phone calls that track where and how often Zanzibar residents travel.

Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous region and tourist hot spot comprising two islands off the coast of East Africa's Tanzania, has commissioned this study as part of its consideration to launch a "total elimination" campaign. In recent years, Zanzibar has been able to drastically reduce new malaria infections through the use of bed nets and insecticide. But to make further progress, authorities wanted to get a … Read more

'Rapid tests' target STD-tropical disease combos

What's worse than malaria? Malaria with a syphilis shooter. But seriously--a Canadian company has just introduced several "rapid tests" that can instantly detect various combinations of tropical and sexually transmitted diseases.

MedMira this week launched its expanded line of Multiplo rapid tests at the U.S. military's Advanced Technology Applications for Casualty Combat Care Conference in St. Pete's Beach, Fla.

The Multiplo tests will be used to diagnose conditions such as HIV, hepatitis B and C, syphilis, malaria and dengue fever in various combinations. This combo feature enhanced by, in some cases, instant results, is … Read more