Sudeshna Adak from OmiX Research and Diagnostics Laboratories Pvt Ltd. In India will develop a point-of-care AMR test and polymer card combined with a phone based surveillance system to detect and track AMR molecular signatures in primary care settings or in settings where access to AMR testing is currently unavailable. They will demonstrate a proof-of-concept for detection of AMR in urinary tract infections (UTI), establish and validate a 5-gene AMR signature assay in the proposed AMR test.

Asif Mohammed from the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in India will identify miRNA patterns as potential biomarkers as per Receiver Operating Characteristics, to identify quantitative patterns of circulating human miRNAs which can be used as early biomarkers to predict outcome of the anti-TB drug therapy. They will follow-up patients during their course of treatment with first line anti-TB drugs, and will isolate, sequence, identify and quantitate circulating miRNAs in sputum and plasma of these individuals at one month, two month and 6/9 months of treatment.

This project aims to redefine the receiving material for human waste from water to granular material, thereby completely bypassing the need for water in this process. The project aims to redesign the conventional toilet to use a bed of granular that will ensure that there is no fecal staining of the system, fecal matter is cut-off from vectors, does not contaminate surface waters and that the user is always presented with a fresh, clean and dry surface.

Srikanth Mutnuri from BIRAC in India in collaboration with Willy Verstraete from Ghent University in Belgium, will aim to develop a financially affordable and simple-to-operate decentralized wastewater treatment system for a single household as well as for a gated community of 100 people (25 families) that will produce high quality effluent for safe disposal. The waste treatment system relies on electrochemical reactions and the production of chlorine, to manipulate the pH of the wastewater to destroy pathogens and helminthes.

In this ICT-based pilot project, Digital Education, tested the impact of a combination of ICT and Participatory Learning Action (PLA) approaches to improve women's knowledge of nutrition in 30 villages. They promoted the dissemination of a series of nutrition-specific participatory videos to address nutrition-specific behaviors, locally feasible solutions as well as expenditure patterns to improve maternal and child diet quality.

Lazar Mathew and team are working on a smart pill box that tracks exactly the time through radio frequency identification (RFID) of the dose coupled with SMS trigger systems. The pill box can dispense blister packs rather than tablets, and incorporates a timer which can only be programmed by the medicine provider. Medication cannot be taken out before or after certain times, preventing double dosage. SMS reminders will be sent to family members as well. Monitoring of up to 90 dosages will be possible with a table-top dispenser.

Anuradha Lele and team from CDAC are building an integrated SMS and voice calling solution, which involves mobile-based applications with forms to register patients, a lab form for sputum examinations, IVRS/missed call reminders, and a patient monitoring application for doctors and DOTS workers. The system also plans to include next of kin and friends to enable seamless monitoring of drug intake of the patient.

Bill Thies and the team of 99DOTS aim to achieve 99% TB drug adherence using a combination of basic mobile phones and augmented blister packaging to provide real-time medication monitoring at drastically reduced cost. The approach is to utilize a custom envelope, or blister card, into which each pack of medication is inserted and sealed by the care provider. When the patient dispenses medication from the blister pack, the pills also break through perforated flaps on the blister card. On the back side of each flap is a hidden number. Patients submit these numbers using their mobile phone as evidence that they have dispensed medication. To avoid incurring any mobile charges, the numbers are used to complete a phone number and deliver a "Missed call" (Missed calls are free if they are not pointed to a VoiceMail). Using this system patients also receive a series of daily reminders (via SMS and automated calls). Missed doses trigger SMS notifications to care providers, who follow up with personal, phone-based counseling. Real-time adherence reports are also made available on the web.

Manjari Deb and team are developing a small, electronic pill dispenser called the CoxBox that enables real-time tracking of patient treatment adherence and inventory. The CoxBox innovation provides a relatively inexpensive and easily implementable solution for action-oriented monitoring and controlling of anti-tubercular drug adherence through the use of a microcontroller-based electromechanical pill box with programmable alarm annunciator and a built-in mobile device.

Janardan Suresh and team are building a mobile-based application to improve TB adherence. The system, called TB Prasakti, involves SMS-based reminder and follow up, automated telephone reminder and follow up, and a total patient information system, which ensures maximum utilization of technology for TB. It provides for easy scalability and affordability and provides a "single window" to capture, store, remind, follow up and generate reports, thus ensuring a comprehensive and all-encompassing solution. The novelty lies in the solution being a total end-to-end tracking of the TB patient treatment and adherence life cycle, in which all the stakeholders are able to communicate through a single system.

Saleem Mohammed of XCode is developing a platform for publishing, through which "health signals" will be delivered. These health signals are delivered over a subscriber's mobile phone in a snack format comprised of a reminder system through SMS, a reply mechanism for confirmation, a 1-minute audio clip that educates about the disease, and a quiz for engagement and incentives to be awarded accordingly. The SMS acts as a teaser to the audio clip that expands and goes into greater detail about TB drug adherence. The technology is deployed in the cloud, which enables the solution to scale rapidly and dynamically. REAP TB also uses the services of TB survivors for counseling and following up with TB patients.

Avin Agarwal and team will develop an electronic pill box with the software architecture based on a client-server software solution with hardware integration. The technique involves tracking the weight of the remaining pills through an electronic pill box with GSM connection and pressure sensor. This approach tracks if the pill is taken out of the pill box for consumption and reports this information to the central server. The solution could be as effective as DOT and a lot cheaper to implement. Addressing the cost of implementation will be emphasized for long-term execution, and an alternate SMS-based solution is suggested to reduce the dependency on pill boxes, in case the objective can be met using a less expensive SMS solution. By the nature of its design, the application will identify defaulters and escalate them for more stringent techniques of monitoring and at the same time alert healthcare professionals only when necessary.

Nishant Kumar and team are building a mobile hardware app which can serve an electronic pill box and can be attached to a conventional mobile phone. The hardware attachment has a rectangular sleek design, which can be fixed onto the mobile phone or can be used separately. A mobile application runs on the phone and controls the hardware attachment via Bluetooth. This product also facilitates a novel points-based incentives system to further encourage the patient towards continued adherence. A complementary mobile phone application runs on the handheld devices of the health worker. The hardware attachment can either be distributed as a standalone product or with a phone.

Kouichi Hasegawa of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine in India will develop an assay using human liver cells to study the parasite Plasmodium vivax, which causes malaria, and to screen for new anti-malarial drugs. During the parasitic life cycle inside human hosts, P. vivax infects hepatocytes (liver cells), where it can lie dormant and protected from treatment, leading to disease relapse. To identify new drugs to target this stage of P. vivax requires large numbers of human liver cells, which are difficult to obtain and often unsuitable. A new approach will be used to generate human hepatocytes by isolating a type of white blood cell from individuals infected with P. vivax, and inducing them to differentiate into hepatocytes, which should better support parasite growth. Once validated, this P. vivax liver-stage culture system will be used in a preliminary screen of a set of chemical compounds to identify new anti-malarial drugs. This grant was selected through India's IKP Knowledge Park and their IKP-GCE program.