Neil Davey of Harvard University has been invited for a talk at the TEDx in Paris next month on an innovative hand held device for diagnosis of malaria, a disease which in 2014 accounted for 438,000 deaths globally.

Aimed at diagnosis and treatment of this dreaded disease, two Indian-American undergraduate students at the Harvard University -- Neil Davey and Miraj Shah -- spent months working with two undergraduate students in Peru, Marco Malaga and Fabricio Espinoza, to design and develop a hand-held point-of-care diagnostic for malaria.

The microfluidic device, named UniDx (short for Universal Diagnostics), which was field tested in the Peruvian Amazon where costly lab equipment and expertise are lacking, involves a simple, but sensitive process.

DNA from a small amount of blood is isolated and subsequently injected into the device, which encapsulates the DNA into individual microfluidic drops; subsequently, if present in an encapsulated drop, malaria-specific DNA will be targeted and amplified, thereby causing that drop to fluoresce.

Based on the findings and research so far, TEDx has invited Dave for a talk in Paris on May 20, a media release said.

After the talk, Dave and his team is headed to India to transfer the technology of UniDx for malaria and potentially other pathogenic blood samples, with the hope that his device can truly become the universal diagnostic of infectious diseases.

The WHEELS Global Foundation this week announced to fund Dave and his team USD 15,000 for this purpose which is being done in collaboration with Prof. Debjani Paul of the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai.

WHEELS Global Foundation is a non-profit organisation dedicated to improving health outcomes in India.

"An infectious disease-free world can only exist if our medical approach moves from curative to preventative, and the first step to making that happen is early diagnosis. UniDx can accomplish that with just a few drops of blood, Dave said. PTI LKJ ZH

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