Track: Global Health

The MEGAN Protocol offers a groundbreaking, AI-powered diagnostic tool for Parkinson’s disease, combining a wearable sensor system with a reinforced-learning algorithm for comprehensive neurological assessment. It democratizes healthcare access, ensures early detection and monitoring, and significantly reduces diagnostic costs, making it a revolutionary solution in the field of neurodegenerative diseases.

Synaptrix Labs is revolutionizing mobility for severe motor impairments through brain-computer interfaces. Their flagship device, Neuralis, leverages EEG signals from the visual cortex, and enables precise wheelchair control via evoked potentials. Neuralis redefines independence, offering unparalleled freedom through cutting-edge brain-computer interface technology for paraplegic patients with ALS or SCI.

Code Blue is a plugin built into users’ devices that is designed to detect the early signs of stroke by analyzing already-in-use video and audio streams. It then alerts emergency services and the user’s emergency contact on onset of symptoms to expedite medical intervention, preventing long-term damage and death.

Protein therapies are front and center of medical treatments with over 80 drugs approved worldwide and over 170 in active clinical development. Downstream processing of protein products accounts for 50 – 80% of the total cost of production, with a large portion of expenses going towards the protein extraction process. With the protein production industry currently valued at $284.5 billion, there is a demand for a cheaper, more sustainable, and energy-efficient alternative. Using genetic engineering, Cellyse proposes a novel lytic technology which offers researchers and fermentation companies a way to extract recombinant proteins with only water. Our technology can expand biologics production through its ease of use and nontrivial cost reductions—paving the way for more affordable and equitable healthcare globally. Beyond optimizing extraction, our genetic construct also allows for valuable nutrients otherwise lost in purification to be recycled in the fermentation process, eliminating waste from over 255 million liters of cell culture media annually.

Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is one of the leading contributors to malnutrition around the world, causing blindness, stunted physical and mental development, and disease vulnerability. South Asia has one of the highest rates of VAD in the world, especially among children and pregnant mothers. Vitamin A supplementation has been cited as one of the most effective ways to combat VAD, but current methods, including high-dose injections every 6 months, dietary diversification, daily vitamin A supplements, and biofortification of crops, fall short because of a lack of strict government regulation and cultural incompatibility. This team’s yogurt-based, engineered probiotic starter is able to integrate into the existing culture of South Asia, increasing the likelihood of adherence and giving families power over their own nutrition. Once consumed, the engineered probiotic, S. boulardii, will continuously synthesize the vitamin A precursor beta-carotene in the gut, providing constant supplementation to vulnerable populations and reducing the need for government intervention.

Despite the large and increasing population of forcibly displaced Afghan immigrants in the U.S., there is limited information about their health status and health service utilization. Among this already marginalized population, women are at a higher risk for worse health outcomes given their unique sociocultural barriers to health and healthcare. With over 66,000 Afghan immigrants in the San Francisco Bay Area as of 2019, there is an unaddressed need to ensure Afghan women are supported with attaining health and obtaining healthcare services in the U.S. Sofreh Salamati is a novel gathering, designed specifically to meet the needs of Afghan refugee women and created by Afghan refugee women. With our initiative, we facilitate health education and the health benefits of spirituality, address pervasive misinformation and cultural myths, and uplift the strengths that Afghan women already have. As a result, Sofreh Salamati will address practical and sociocultural barriers to healthcare and empower women to feel confident in imagining, seeking, and maintaining good health.

Every year, millions of people suffer brain injuries, yet diagnosis and treatment guidance is limited by traditional healthcare options. Confidence aims to improve the experience of brain injury patients and healthcare professionals by using a patient’s smartphone data to provide optimized and personalized care. After a suspected or known brain injury, healthcare professionals will direct patients to download the Confidence application to their smartphones, which will allow the application to locally access and analyze the patient’s data to analyze for changes correlated to brain injury, such as cognition, mobility, emotional stability, and general activity. A summary of this information will be provided to the healthcare team so it can be used to assist in diagnosis and guide treatment options. Ultimately, Confidence will give each patient customized rehabilitation that increases their recovery and opportunities to continue thriving in their community.