Awards

Project intends to capture the images of blood samples for diagnosis of Lymphatic Filariasis and applying customized machine learning algorithms for quantification and classification of Lymphatic Filariasis.

Project intends to discover high affinity and specific ligands called suprabodies as the biomarkers of Lymphatic Filariasis.

Project intends to identify highly specific, and tandem repeats in the genomes of W. bancrofti, B. malayii, B. timori, and other human filarial agents, to develop a field-deployable, diagnostically robust molecular Point-of-Care test for Lymphatic Filariasis detection.

Wyckliff Omondi from the Ministry of Health in Kenya will integrate a neglected tropical disease (NTD) surveillance program into the national blood donation program as a more cost-effective mechanism to monitor lymphatic filariasis and other endemic NTDs in Kenya. Kenya is on course to eliminate lymphatic filariasis using mass drug administration programs. Certifying regions as disease-free requires careful post-treatment assessments. To support this, they will work with the Kenya National Blood Transfusion Service, which collects, tests, and distributes blood across the country, to collect small, normally discarded blood samples from regional centers and test them for lymphatic filariasis, dengue and chikungunya in their central laboratory. As well as supporting eradication efforts, this routine testing will provide an early warning system by identifying distribution patterns and prevalence of dengue and chikungunya, which have histories of outbreaks in coastal regions.

Innocent Semali of Hubert Kairuki Memorial University in Tanzania will design a more effective strategy for eliminating trachoma in the nomadic Maasai communities in Tanzania. Trachoma is a bacterial disease and a leading cause of blindness. Globally, there are around 84 million sufferers, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. In Tanzania, the standard control strategy, which involves mass drug administration of azithromycin, eliminated trachoma from most districts. However, the strategy has largely failed in nomadic populations for unclear reasons. To identify those reasons, they will work towards building a partnership with a Maasai community and relevant stakeholders and use interviews and surveys to document their perceptions and behaviors around the standard trachoma interventions. This information will be used to understand the failure of the previous interventions and, together with the communities and stakeholders, to develop new strategies for testing in two villages using a mixed methods approach.

Judy Sakanari of the University of California, San Francisco, and Manu Prakash from Stanford University in the U.S. will develop a cheap electromagnetic detection device to non-invasively assess the viability of parasitic nematode worms in infected patients to guide treatment duration. Current methods of detecting viable worms in nodules or the lymphatic system are invasive or expensive. Using animal infection models, they will develop an easy-to-use electronic bandage enabling ultrasensitive detection of capacitance changes caused by movement or physical changes in the adult worms following drug treatment. This could greatly improve the ability to perform in vivo drug studies in animals by being able to non-invasively monitor worm viability over the course of drug treatment and dosing. The bandages will ultimately be tested on humans and could be designed to transfer data remotely for real-time monitoring of the effects of drug treatments in the field.

Kaveh Ashrafi of the University of California, San Francisco in the U.S. will use the free-living model nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans as a molecular platform to identify new drugs capable of killing adult filarial parasitic worms, which cause serious infections. C. elegans is a non-parasitic model organism that can be easily grown and manipulated in the lab, unlike related parasitic Roundworms. Ashrafi will genetically engineer C. elegans to carry the parasitic version of the gene encoding phosphodiesterase-4, inhibition of which is known to kill the parasites. This mutant, as well as one carrying the human version of the same gene, will be used in screens to identify drug candidates that can selectively kill adult parasites.

Tony Goldberg of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the U.S. will promote the use of flip-flop-style sandals to disrupt the transmission of soil-borne helminths in rural Uganda. Soil-transmitted helminth infections are one of the most common infections worldwide. Their transmission can be disrupted by wearing sandals, but convincing people to wear them has proven challenging. In consultation with the local community, he will design a hologram, which is cheap and mass producible, to stick on the sandals to symbolize the health benefits of wearing them and thereby promote their consistent use. Goldberg will test the ability of the hologram to reduce soil-transmitted helminth infection rates in selected households in Western Uganda.

Mostafa Zamanian of Iowa State University in the U.S. will take schistosomes, which are parasitic worms that cause a range of infectious diseases, make them sterile, and genetically modify them to deliver anti-parasitic (anthelmintic) agents into humans to protect them against subsequent infections. They will use genome editing, guided by RNA in the worms, to disrupt individual genes required for laying eggs in order to make the worms sterile and thereby non-pathogenic. They will also introduce transgenes that encode for anthelmintic molecules to inhibit parasitic species, including filarial nematodes and juvenile schistosomes, and test their efficacy using animal models. This biological vector system is advantageous as it will specifically target the relevant site in the body and could provide long lasting protection against a variety of parasitic infections.

James Tibenderana and colleagues of the Malaria Consortium in the United Kingdom are adapting a "community dialogue" approach to build trust between communities and the health system in Mozambique in order to boost participation in Mass Drug Administration (MDA) programs against neglected tropical diseases. Low participation in MDA programs is thought to be caused by negative local perceptions of these diseases and a limited understanding of the goals of MDAs. By engaging with communities to address their misconceptions and fill knowledge gaps, they aim to align the goals of the community with those of MDAs to improve participation. In Phase I, Sylvia Meek performed a pilot study focused on schistosomiasis and trained 157 community members in four, resource-poor districts of the Nampula province to act as dialogue facilitators. They developed materials such as flip charts for the facilitators to inform individuals, including those who are illiterate, during organized sessions about the causes, symptoms, prevention, and control of schistosomiasis. Their study increased awareness and knowledge, and willingness to participate in MDAs, and also mobilized communities to implement preventative measures such as building latrines. In Phase II, James Tibenderana and colleagues will adapt their approach to maximize its impact and address the challenges identified in Phase I. Two additional diseases will be included, and they will train more facilitators. The refined approach will then be tested over a longer period in the same region as Phase I, and involve more extensive evaluation to ultimately test its impact on MDA participation.