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NTAC Challenge Winners - 2020

NIH has awarded a total of $1 million to six winners of the NIH Technology Accelerator Challenge for the design and development of non-invasive, handheld, digital technologies to detect and diagnose sickle cell disease (SCD), malaria, and anemia. Winners are listed below.

First Prize
$400,000
Young Kim
Intravital mHealth spectroscopy of microvascular blood analysis for anemia and sickle cell disease

The proposal aims to develop a non-invasive, smartphone-based spectroscopy platform to detect anemia and SCD by analyzing photos of the microvasculature of the inner eyelid.

Purdue University
Lafayette, IN
Second Prize
$200,000
Bala Raja, Andrew Paterson, Rhoel Dinglasan
Rapid, smartphone-based salivary diagnostics for malaria, anemia, and COVID-19

Saliva will be non-invasively collected and analyzed by multiplex lateral flow tests for detection of SARS-CoV-2-specific antigens, ferritin (a marker of iron deficiency), and a malaria parasite protein, PSSP17.

Luminostics
San Jose, CA
Third Prize
$100,000
Nicholas Durr, Gregory McKay
CapCyte: a mobile phone capillaroscopic cytometer for non-invasive blood analysis

The smartphone-based Capillaroscopic Cytometer will non-invasively image thousands of capillary blood cells for cell classification, morphology, counting, and measurement of flow from a single video dataset.

Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD
Third Prize
$100,000
Peter Galen, Ran An, Paul Addison, Jake Dove
Affordable non-invasive and minimally invasive diagnosis of anemia, malaria, and sickle cell disease

Disease diagnosis is performed using a finger cuff to detect hemoglobin variants related to anemia and SCD, and hemozoin, a marker for the malaria parasite in blood.

HEMEX Health, Inc.; Medtronic; Case Western Reserve University; University of Nebraska
Portland; Cleveland, OH; Lincoln, NE
Third Prize
$100,000
Saurabh Mehta
Mobile-based assessment of iron deficiency, inflammation, and malaria infection in saliva

A smartphone app and 3D printed attachment will be used in a saliva lateral flow assay using gold nanoparticles to capture markers for iron deficiency (ferritin), inflammation (CRP), and malaria (PSSP17).

Cornell University
Ithaca, NY
Third Prize
$100,000
Erika Tyburski, Robert Mannino
AnemoCheck Mobile: A noninvasive smartphone app for anemia diagnosis and underlying etiology screening

The technology uses a picture of the fingernail beds and a smartphone app to evaluate anemia and screen for SCD with a novel algorithm.

Sanguina, Inc
Peachtree Corners, GA
Honorable Mention
James Y. Suen
Cytophone for rapid noninvasive label-free screening of global diseases

This proposal will employ a smartphone-based device that uses laser pulses on the skin and ultrasound to detect rare circulating malaria and sickle cell disease-related cells.

CytoAstra, LLC; University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences; Yale
Little Rock, AR; Fayetteville, AR; New Haven, CT