Larry Rand and colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco in the U.S. will develop a vaginal diaphragm to detect changes in cervical collagen and wirelessly alert health providers before preterm labor begins. This device would identify a new pre-labor "window" during which intervention could reduce mortality and disability resulting from preterm birth among at-risk pregnant women. In Phase I, they designed an easy to use and low-cost device incorporating electrical impedance detection circuitry and fiber optic cable to accurately measure collagen concentration in the cervix of pregnant women over time. Prototypes were built for clinical tests to evaluate the capacity for identifying pregnant women at risk of preterm birth, as well as comfort and acceptability. In Phase II they will optimize the device to make it more robust and user-friendly and expand clinical testing to rural settings in South Africa. They will also develop phone-to-cloud technology for wirelessly collecting the measurements from the device through a mobile phone to a server (cloud) for analysis, and to enable return of the prognosis.

Robert (Bruce) Cary of Mesa Tech International, Inc. in the U.S. proposes to develop nucleic acid purification systems that use a novel configuration of lateral flow materials to bind and wash nucleic acids to yield amplification-­ready samples. These devices could provide purified samples from clinical specimens within minutes without user intervention, instrumentation, electricity or costly materials.

Mario Ostrowski of the University of Toronto in Canada will test the theory that alterations of host cells by HIV might also activate human endogenous retroviruses in the same cells. Ostrowski will express antigens of an endogenous retrovirus to study whether they might also mark HIV infected cells, providing a basis for the development of a new HIV vaccine.

Mark van Raaij of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) at the National Center for Biotechnology in Spain will work to build a library of engineered bacteriophages that can recognize, infect, and kill a range of enterobacteria such as Salmonella and E. coli.