At Western, researchers have been working on innovations in health care intended for communities in resource-constrained environments. The Frugal Biomedical Innovations Program has launched 15 catalyst grants to support these innovations, which will help in diagnosis of diseases and in therapy, while costing less to operate or maintain.  

Ana Luisa Trejos, professor with the department of electrical and computer engineering is leading a project to create a low-cost wearable system to monitor Parkinson’s disease. 

The 10 million people worldwide living with the disease have differing needs, depending on the severity of the condition. This is why Trejos and the team at the WearMELab, in collaboration with Kwara State University in Nigeria, are developing the low-cost system, which will assist in treatment planning. 

“Through the catalyst grant, we are initiating a collaboration with under-resourced countries in Africa, starting with Nigeria. This collaboration allows us to co-create a design solution aimed at supporting the health of people living in remote and low-resource communities,” said Trejos, who is the Canada Research Chair in wearable mechatronics.  

Saving the lives of newborns 

Another engineering team is looking at a key innovation which could save the lives of millions of infants. 

“Jaundice causes an unnecessary loss of life. It is responsible for 15 per cent of infant deaths in the developing world. This can be stopped with phototherapy, but commercial systems are expensive and not nearly as available as they should be in low resource settings,” said Western Engineering professor Joshua Pearce. 

Pearce’s partners at Kenyatta University, Nairobi, have developed a light therapy box at a comparatively lower cost than commercially available models, but it must be calibrated for clinical use, and this process has to be affordable. The teams will jointly create an open-source sensor device to calibrate the therapy box.  

This is one of three affordable innovation projects Pearce is leading which were supported by catalyst grants. 

Detecting brain injury in pre-term babies 

Mamadou Diop, professor in medical biophysics, is developing a low-cost device for detecting brain injury in pre-term babies who are particularly vulnerable to brain swelling and inadequate blood flow. Current non-invasive monitoring techniques, such as near-infrared spectroscopy, are often out of reach in remote and low-resource areas of the world. 

“Neonatal brain injury is a major concern in under-resourced communities, and we know that early signs of brain injury can be detected by cerebral monitoring of blood oxygenation,” said Diop.  

“Our goal is to develop a low-cost, wearable device that is less expensive, can function using very low power, and can be operated by a minimally trained person.” 

Diop is collaborating with David Holdsworth, as well as researchers at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Senegal, on the project.

Congratulations to the 15 recipients of the Frugal Biomedical Innovation Catalyst Grants: