Awards

Sean Stowell of Brigham and Women's Hospital in the U.S. will analyze the human antibody repertoires targeting microbes in the female genital track (FGT) to guide the design and use of live biotherapeutic products for bacterial vaginosis. They will use their microarray platform, consisting of an array of antigens from FGT microbes, to analyze genital tract samples from a cohort of women in an HIV drug clinical study in South Africa. They will define the association between FGT antibody levels and specificity with FGT microbial colonization and inflammation. They will also perform experiments to explore potential mechanisms for antibody-mediated microbial attachment and colonization, focusing on antibody interactions with FGT mucin proteins. Together, the results will set the stage for using the microarray platform to identify patient-specific variables as biomarkers to predict the success of live biotherapeutic products.

Bryan Ranger of Boston College in the U.S. will develop a cost-effective, portable, and automated ultrasound tool to monitor nutritional health of young pregnant women in Ethiopia. The tool will incorporate AI models that guide users in collecting high quality data, so the tool can be used by frontline and community healthcare workers without extensive ultrasound training, and the models will use this data to predict metrics of nutritional status. In a pilot study conducted at the Jimma Medical center, they will create a database of ultrasound scans, anthropometry, body composition measured by gold standard techniques, and the associated clinical data from a group of young pregnant women. Ultrasound measurements will incorporate data on user position to identify the most informative positions via machine learning. They will survey clinical users to guide the ultimate design of the ultrasound system.

Solomon Hailemeskel of Debre Berhan University in Ethiopia will pilot test midwife-led birthing centers for pregnant women and newborns at low risk of complications to increase access to safe, high-quality childbirth experiences for Ethiopian women. They will implement a multicenter randomized controlled trial, recruiting a cohort of pregnant women from antenatal care clinics across diverse healthcare facilities to ensure a representative sample. After training midwives to provide continuity of care before, during, and after pregnancy, they will establish midwife-led birthing centers in dedicated spaces, either within or separate from a higher-level health facility. A subset of trial participants will be randomly assigned to the birthing centers. They will compare outcomes for the two groups, including data on maternal and neonatal health outcomes, as well as qualitative data from interviews of mothers, midwives, and healthcare providers.

Rapidemic in the Netherlands will collaborate with Mohammed Majam of Ezintsha in South Africa to develop a prototype for a molecular test for rapid multiplex diagnosis of chlamydia and gonorrhea, while determining the requirements for its deployment in South African primary care settings to serve hard-to-reach populations. The test system will be designed to diagnose symptomatic and asymptomatic patients accurately and inexpensively using a rapid and disposable test. To guide prototyping, they will research user preferences and assess the usability of the developed device. They will also conduct research to ensure that the development meets regulatory requirements for the South African market and addresses the needs of pharmacies and primary healthcare settings in South Africa.

Mike Baiocchi of Stanford University in the U.S. will use LLMs to analyze conversational interviews with adolescent girls and young women in Kenya to identify causal mechanisms impairing their health within the potential interplay between living with HIV, mental health conditions, and gender-based violence. Working with the Kenyan Medical Research Institute, they will re-identify and enroll a previously studied cohort living with HIV. The new longitudinal dimension of the study will contribute to untangling causes and effects in parallel to the new LLM-based analysis. They will use LLMs to create statistical measures of participants' descriptions of their experiences to help identify the underlying causes, for instance detecting differences between the responses of those experiencing violence or depression compared to those who have not. Such improved understanding will help to design and target appropriate health interventions.

Elizabeth Nyothach of Kenya Medical Research Institute in Kenya will explore introduction of SunPad, a prototype reusable menstrual pad, determining its acceptability, marketability, and regulatory requirements in Kenya. The SunPad product is made of fabric with a built-in cleaning and disinfecting process that is activated by sunlight. They will conduct focus group discussions with women in Kenya to understand their needs in terms of washing, drying, and reusing the pad, and to gauge their willingness to pay for the product. They will also research the potential for local manufacturing of the pad and determine the regulatory requirements and associated documentation.

Geraldine Mbagwu of Corona Management Systems in Nigeria will implement a pilot project in Bayelsa state in Nigeria that provides training to traditional birth attendants and links them with primary healthcare centers to improve maternal health outcomes. They will engage birth attendants and provide training on topics including using a mobile application to get the latest evidence and health guidelines, as well as training for identifying women with high-risk pregnancies and referring them to the appropriate level of care. They will also ensure access by the birth attendants to key maternal health products and services, including immunization and postpartum family planning. Better integration of traditional birth attendants into the healthcare system will embrace women's agency while improving health outcomes.

Brioni Moore of Curtin University in Australia will perform a trial in Papua New Guinea to validate minimal transfer through breastmilk of the antimalarials primaquine and tafenoquine to enable access by postpartum women to radical malaria cure. Verifying minimal drug transfer in the first two weeks post-birth would enable maternal treatment before hospital discharge, preventing postpartum relapses and improving maternal health outcomes and malaria control. They will recruit a cohort of mother-child pairs in which the mother has confirmed vivax malaria or a recent history of it. They will then quantify the excretion of primaquine and tafenoquine in colostrum and transitional breast milk and determine relative infant exposure, while assessing indices of neonatal physiology.

Nicole Ertl of the University of Queensland in Australia will develop a molecular test prototype for diagnosis of gonorrhea and antimicrobial resistance of the causative agent Neisseria gonorrhoeae. To increase access to testing, they will design the nucleic acid-based test to be rapid, inexpensive, and to work at ambient temperature without the need for electricity. The prototype platform will combine a sample preparation reagent requiring only short incubation at room temperature, chemically heated isothermal amplification, and lateral flow detection. It will incorporate detection of a relevant genetic signature to distinguish sensitivity versus resistance to the relevant drugs ceftriaxone and ciprofloxacin. They will evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of this sample-to-results platform and its usability in settings with minimal laboratory and testing infrastructure.

Zainab Samad of Aga Khan University in Pakistan will incorporate sex and gender as a cross-cutting theme embedded in medical education in Pakistan at Aga Khan University and Khyber Medical University. They will perform a curriculum review across the two universities, engaging students, faculty, university leadership, and patients to understand the current teaching gaps related to sex and gender. This will guide development of a tool kit for incorporating the sex and gender theme across all years of training, with customizable strategies based on sociocultural context. They will implement a year-long pilot test of the program at the universities, integrating the theme into core subjects, including how different diseases are recognized and treated and how treatment decisions are made. Feedback from participants in the program will be incorporated into a road map to guide other medical schools in Pakistan in revising their curriculum.

Imran Zia of the Centre for Economic Research in Pakistan (CERP) with the National Incubation Center will establish an innovation hub to support startup companies in creating practical and accessible health solutions for women living in underserved and low-income communities in Pakistan. They will establish a physical hub that is integrated with an existing research network and uses a human-centered design approach with evidence-based decision-making throughout, from product conception to launch and scale-up. They will develop and implement an open-source curriculum tailored to entrepreneurs for women's health and incubate a cohort of startups. Participating startups will be selected through gatherings held at leading medical universities and through collaboration with other incubators. The hub will lead to improved women's health outcomes, while generating insights on the health needs of women in Pakistan that can help inform national health policy.

Kimberly Templeton of the University of Kansas Medical Center Research Institute in the U.S. will develop educational materials for healthcare providers and researchers on women's health, focusing on sex and gender influences on health. They will establish a virtual center for women's health education to develop, disseminate, and evaluate online teaching materials. These materials will be developed by experts in the field, with guidance from healthcare professionals in the country in which they would be used, and they will be created by partners in the United States, Nigeria, and Kenya initially as a proof of concept. The materials will provide practical, clinically relevant information encompassing common communicable, non-communicable, and chronic conditions across the life course, and they will be available on-line free of charge for a global audience.

Robert Gorkin of Western Sydney University in Australia will develop a clinically relevant qualitative measure of absorbency for menstrual health and hygiene products together with a digital tool incorporating this measure to help women self-identify when their menstrual bleeding requires clinical attention. They will conduct workshops to gather end-user requirements from consumers and clinicians, while defining target technical specifications. Collaborating with the company Enersol, they will evaluate the latest absorbency testing methods to establish a comprehensive testing methodology useful across pads, tampons, and period underwear. Incorporating this measurement system, they will develop a user-friendly digital diary for women to track their menstrual bleeding, guided by relevant existing web- and application-based tools. They will then perform a pilot trial at a clinic, comparing women with normal versus abnormal uterine bleeding, to assess the feasibility, acceptability, and clinical benefit of their menstrual health management system.

Krina Zondervan of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom will characterize endometriosis in African populations to close knowledge gaps and inform the development of non-surgical diagnostics and therapeutics with global applicability. Endometriosis is a chronic inflammatory condition due to growth of endometrial-like tissue outside of the uterus, and it can cause pain and infertility. Working with local collaborators, they will collect endometriosis and related phenotypic data for women across South Africa, Ghana, and Kenya, with genetic data collected from a subset of women. They will identify women with confirmed endometriosis and collect phenotypic data through a globally standardized questionnaire. including the condition's impact on quality of life. They will perform genome-wide association analysis, investigate putative causal genetic variants to help uncover biological mechanisms, and hold meetings to inform and strengthen the collaboration network and plan future research.

Yacine Djibo of Speak Up Africa in Senegal will develop a set of indicators to guide increased incorporation of diverse women's perspectives into health research and development to ensure that women's health products are broadly suitable and accessible. Speak Up Africa will work with Gawani Africa and the Africa Center for Health Systems and Gender Justice, building on their recent related project for Kenya and Nigeria and expanding the analysis to Senegal. They will consolidate data across the three countries to identify measurable indicators for health research and development that encompass elements including whether there are policies promoting gender equality and women's access to leadership roles, the gender diversity of project teams, and the proportion of funding for women-led projects and gender-responsive research. They will then work with stakeholders, ranging from medical women's associations to academic institutions to funding agencies, to refine and validate the proposed indicators.

Shahid Yusuaf of Fincon Services with the Poverty Eradication Initiative in Pakistan will pilot test use of the AI-based mobile application Umeed Sey by community midwives to enhance maternal and newborn health services in Pakistan. The mobile app will help participating midwives in registering pregnant women and capturing their current health status and medical history. It will also support effective triage, identifying high-risk pregnancies for timely referral to specialists, and support management of emergency cases, directing them to the appropriate medical facilities. They will monitor and evaluate use of Umeed Sey in the pilot trial, with a focus on gauging its ability to optimize the patient referral process.

Bernard Olayo of the Center for Public Health and Development in Kenya will develop an AI-based platform to support product innovation for women's health, pilot testing it with Kenyan healthcare providers using heat-stable carbetocin, a drug for preventing postpartum hemorrhage. The platform will broadly serve providers as a resource for new product information, current clinical guidelines, and decision-making support. They will develop the platform through an initial focus on the drug carbetocin as a product with high potential for impact. They will build a library of reference materials for carbetocin, including guidelines contextualized for different healthcare settings; use the library to train a chatbot integrated into WhatsApp; and deploy the platform through relevant professional societies. They will evaluate the platform's impact based on data on providers' use of the chatbot, carbetocin use at Kenyan health facilities, and trends in maternal health outcomes at health facilities using the drug.

Aamirah Mussa of Botswana Harvard AIDS Institute Partnership in Botswana will pilot test a diagnostic screening program for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in adolescent girls and young women in Botswana to determine the infection burden and the cost effectiveness of the program. Chlamydia, gonorrhea, and trichomoniasis are common, curable STIs, but asymptomatic infections can be unknowingly spread and may not be detected until they cause serious, long-term complications. They will work with a youth advisory board to design the screening protocol, including determining how best to reach the target population and whether to screen at home or in the clinic and by a self-collected or clinician-collected swab. They will then screen a cohort in the capital city Gaborone using a nucleic acid amplification test. The cost of the screening and treatment will be compared to the cost of the currently used protocol of syndromic management with diagnosis by microscopy for persistent infections.

Taro Yamauchi of Hokkaido University in Japan will explore a community-based approach for menstrual hygiene management through fieldwork across different socioeconomic and sociocultural contexts in Japan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Cameroon, and Zambia. This broad exploration will guide solutions that are tailored to each local context while also applicable in other countries and regions to improve the health and wellbeing of girls and women. Field work will encompass living conditions in urban, urban slum, and rural contexts, as well as in indigenous communities. They will incorporate a gender perspective on menstrual hygiene to understand how men's and women's knowledge and attitudes influence each other. They will engage community and religious leaders; healthcare providers, such as nurses and midwives; and girls and women, along with older generations. In Bangladesh, they will perform an intervention to improve menstrual hygiene and evaluate its impact.

Elaine Nsoesie of Boston University in the U.S. will develop a fellowship program to provide data science and research training to early-career women working to advance women's health. The fellowship will include participation in the annual convening organized by Data Science Africa, an organization focused on building expertise in data science and AI in local communities across Africa. It will also include an online scientific writing retreat, mentorship programs, and community building activities. The fellowship program would contribute to progress in women's health by advancing the careers of researchers working in the area, supporting research publication, and by encouraging trainees to share their knowledge with other women in their networks.