Kiersten Israel-Ballard of PATH in the U.S., in partnership with University of Washington and Human Milk Banking (HMB) Association of South Africa, will work to develop and test a low-cost, cell-phone-based networked sensing system to provide safety monitoring of low-technology flash- heating pasteurization of breast milk designated for donation. The goal is to scale-up human milk banking for vulnerable infants in resource-limited settings. In Phase I, in collaboration with users, they designed a device to pasteurize milk that could also monitor the process and wirelessly connect to an Android application, which could store donor information and print reports and bottle labels. Its performance was tested in human milk banks in South Africa, and training was provided to mothers to promote the acceptance of community-based milk banks. In Phase II, they will expand implementation of their device to establish ten, new, small-scale human milk banks in South Africa, and assess whether it enhances the pasteurization process by retaining valuable immune properties in the milk. They will also develop a related diagnostic tool to test for donor milk contamination onsite by untrained staff, and begin technology commercialization for long-term production.

Ioannis Ieropoulos of the University of the West of England, Bristol in the United Kingdom will test the ability of microbial fuel cells to convert urine and sludge into electrical energy while also purifying water by killing disease-causing pathogens in the waste. This technology could enable energy recovery from urine and other waste streams in developing countries. In Phase I, he provided proof of concept that the technology could be used with urine by testing power performance, clean water output, and pathogen kill rates of different types of microbial fuel cells, as well as identifying ceramic as a promising material for construction. In Phase II, he will ready the technology for implementation in developing countries by further developing the ceramic designs for low-cost mass manufacturing and servicing, and testing their ability to destroy a wide range of pathogens and generate energy for lighting or mobile phone charging. They will also analyze water production quality. The final prototype integrated into a real toilet or urinal will be field tested initially in Durban.

Blanca Jimenez Cisneros of Mexican Autonomous National University in Mexico will develop software to automatically identify and quantify parasitic helminth eggs in wastewater. The software could provide a rapid and low-cost method for untrained personnel to test wastewater before its reuse in agriculture, thereby reducing parasitic infections in local populations. In Phase I, Cisneros generated an image database of a variety of common helminth species and developed an algorithm that could effectively identify helminth eggs from seven different species in two different water quality conditions. In Phase II, she will expand the image database to cover more species, and upgrade the software protocol to identify eggs in water with higher solid contents, such as fecal sludge and excreta. Cisneros will also develop a simple software platform and a strategy for worldwide distribution to both low- and high-income countries.

Yong Zhang of the National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention in China will characterize vaccine-derived polioviruses (VDPV), which emerge from the widely used oral polio vaccine and can cause disease outbreaks, to aid surveillance and eradication efforts. Polio has been largely eradicated from many countries by vaccination. However, the vaccine itself is an attenuated form of the poliovirus that can revert back to a virulent form. In Phase I, they sequenced and compared the genomes of different types of VDPVs that have emerged in China to determine how the virus arises and circulates in the population. In Phase II, they will sequence more VDPVs and look for so-called mutation hotspots in the genome, which could lead to a safer and more effective vaccine.