Cell, Culture, Community

Over 90% of American sickle cell disease (SCD) patients are Black or African American, contributing to a history of underfunding and stigma. Patients in debilitating pain are misconstrued as drug seekers. What medicines they receive have side effects and fail to address the root cause. In this season’s finale, I interview John Paderi, Chief Scientific Officer at IHP Therapeutics. Inspired by Biode...

Low-cost, rapid, accurate, portable, heat-proof… These are just a few of the many boundary conditions Prof. Suman Chakraborty keeps in mind while designing for low-resource settings. Inspired by the simple arts and crafts we do in primary school, he builds paper-based frugal diagnostics. He explores the deep science in everyday items. Tune in to hear how he invented pencil-drawn electrodes and mic...

“We always love our technology,” Dr. Geetha says. “It’s easy to say - yeah, that false negative? It has to be false.” Today, I speak with the founder of Niramai, a safe, accessible AI-based cancer diagnostic that’s gone beyond buzzwords to create large-scale, global impact. Join us to hear how Dr. Geetha built the world’s largest database of thermal breast images, navigated doctors’ worries of bei...

In 2019, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) caused 1.27 million deaths around the world. Antibiotic misuse is making tried and trusted medicines ineffective against resistant superbugs. In this episode, I speak with Prof. Urmi Bajpai, co-Founder of the International Bacteriophage Research Consortium. We dissect how phages work, what we can and cannot engineer in them today, and why global coordination...

Studies reveal >65% of babied admitted into Asian and African NICUs are hypothermic. In Part 3 of this series on neonatal health devices for low-resource settings, I speak with Sonia Sosa from the Rice360 Institute for Global Health Technologies. Through bite-sized student projects, they develop tools such as Celsi, a continuous monitor that alerts nurses of unchecked hypothermia. Tune in as So...

The Brilliance phototherapy device has touched the lives of over 1 million neonates with jaundice. Their trick? Probing deep into health systems to ask: Who are the people and institutions providing care to underserved communities? What does it take to earn their trust? How do we embolden health workers to use their skills to the fullest? In Part 2 of this series spotlighting neonatal health techn...

“Device graveyards” clutter the basements and broom closets of crowded hospitals. As of 2010, a whooping 40% of medical devices in the developing world were out of service due to inadequate repair, training, or infrastructure. Join us for Part 1 of this series spotlighting neonatal health technologies created for low-resource settings. Today’s guest, Tanner Shioshita from Equalize Health, shares t...