Northwestern University’s Center for Point-of-care Technology Innovation in HIV/AIDS and Emerging Infectious Diseases (C-THAN), housed within Northwestern Engineering University’s Center for Innovation in Global Health Technology (CIGHT), has received up to $8 million in renewed funding from the National Institutes of Health ( NIH) for more than five years.
C-THAN, launched in 2018 with a $7.5 million grant, supports collaboration between McCormick School of Engineering researchers and African university partners to foster an ecosystem of point-of-care (POC) technology development to better detect and Monitor for HIV and common life-threatening comorbidities and complications, including tuberculosis, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers.
Sally McFall, research professor of biomedical engineering at Northwestern Engineering University and co-director of CIGHT, serves as co-principal investigator of the new grant. She will be joined by co-principal investigator Robert Murphy, the John Philip Phair Professor of Infectious Diseases, Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Engineering, and Executive Director of the Harvey Institute for Global Health; Cha Chad Achenbach, associate professor of medicine and biomedical engineering.
C-THAN will use renewal funding to achieve three main goals:
- Develop a comprehensive research program to identify and support promising point-of-care (POC) technologies for HIV/AIDS and its comorbidities, as well as emerging infectious diseases, to meet the needs of low- or middle-income countries
- Build international and domestic platforms to support clinical transformation and verification research of POC technology
- Promote and enhance interdisciplinary training in needs assessment, development, evaluation and commercialization of POC technologies
“C-THAN will continue to develop innovative POC devices and assays that are critical to improving the diagnosis and monitoring of HIV, its comorbidities, and emerging infectious diseases,” said Murphy. “With this new round of funding, we have Expand the network to a total of nine African sites and expand the scope of work to new diseases that may threaten the global population. In addition, we will actively continue to improve the technical capabilities of our African partners and work to develop and commercialize products where they are most needed. “
C-THAN is one of six award-winning technology R&D centers in the country. The centers are comprised of the Point of Care Technology Research Network (POCTRN) and will leverage the momentum of the original network established in 2007 by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB). In the first year of the new five-year funding period, the six centers will share a total award of $9.6 million.
In addition to NIBIB, there are studies from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Cancer Institute, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, Fogarty International Center, Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research, Office of AIDS NIH and the Office of Disease Prevention and Control are supporting POCTRN.
C-THAN is funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, grant #U54EB027049.