Topics in Global Health: Mobile to Multiplex

Join experts from nongovernmental organizations, industry, and government as they examine how to meet the needs for diagnostics in global health in the absence of resources to develop these technologies.

Low- and middle-income countries have made significant progress in reducing the burden of infectious diseases. But sustaining these gains will require more low-cost diagnostics to support population-level health programs. These range from basic laboratory tests to diagnose infections to sophisticated molecular diagnostics for assessing the presence of multiple pathogens within populations. How do they address this challenge when the people who need these technologies can least afford them? A panel of the world’s leading diagnostic experts will examine this issue from multiple perspectives and offer solutions for accelerating innovation in this space.

Keynote Address: “Harnessing High Tech for Global Health”
Dan Fletcher, PhD, University of California at Berkeley. Inventor of the LoaScope that turns a smartphone into a high-quality light microscope for diagnosing parasitic infections.

Panelists

• Dianna Blau, DVM, PhD, laboratory and diagnostics leader, Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) program (seconded from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
• J. Brandon Dixon, PhD, associate professor, bioengineering, Georgia Tech
• Jessica Fairley, MD, infectious disease specialist, Emory University
• Patrick Lammie, PhD, senior scientist, Neglected Tropical Diseases Support Center, The Task Force for Global Health