Four U of A researchers including Chemistry professor Michael Serpe are among winners of this year's Grand Challenges Canada competition. Each will receive $100,000 to develop innovative projects in different parts of the developing world aimed at saving lives or improving the well-being of millions of people.
Better diagnoses with better tool
Michael Serpe says millions of people die in developing countries because they're treated for diseases they don't have.
"When people go to a clinician for, say, malaria, the clinician will just treat them for whatever they think they have, without anything to back up their diagnosis," Serpe says. "The problem is that diagnostic devices are just not available...[or] the clinicians do not necessarily believe the results they get in cases where there are diagnostic devices."
Serpe will work with colleagues in Nigeria and Pakistan to develop a device to test for multiple biomarkers-molecules that indicate the presence of a diseases. The aim also is to make it less expensive than other tests on the market.
"Instead of one test being positive, they will have up to seven separate tests confirm the presence of a disease and this will boost the clinicians' confidence on the result," he says.