Columbia team takes top prize at Rice 360° design competition

Two Rice teams win prizes in contest with students from four continents

Students from Columbia and Rice universities dominated the awards at Rice 360° Institute for Global Health’s annual student design competition March 23. The eighth annual competition drew nearly 90 students from 15 universities in the U.S., Asia and Africa.

Jason Patterson and Meghana Noonavath of MoLabs, a student team from Columbia University, took top honors in the Rice 360° Institute for Global Health’s design competition March 23. MoLab’s smartphone camera attachment to diagnose diabetic retinopathy also won accolades for best poster and the people’s choice award.

First place went to MoLabs, a five-person team from Columbia that is developing a smartphone camera attachment that uses an infrared focusing system to diagnose diabetic retinopathy in low-resource settings. While 90 percent of diabetic retinopathy-related blindness is preventable if caught early, 1 in 2 patients are diagnosed too late. MoLabs has been testing its prototype in India, where there are only 15,610 ophthalmologists for some 70 million patients at risk for diabetic retinopathy. The MoLabs device does not require a specialist for diagnosis. It also does not require pupil dilation and gives instant results. MoLabs, which was represented by Meghana Noonavath and Jason Patterson, also won accolades for best poster and the people’s choice award.

Catherine Dunaway and Nadia Ansari, a Rice University team that developed a training model to improve diagnosis for breast cancer in low-resource environments, accept second place honors for Team Breast Test.

Rice’s Team Breast Test won second place for its training model to improve diagnosis for breast cancer in low-resource environments. In contrast to the existing high-cost solutions, seniors Catherine Dunaway, Nadia Ansari, Monica Bodd and Meg Brigman have developed a durable, cost-effective training device that prepares practitioners in three diagnostic techniques: palpation, fine-needle aspiration and ultrasound. Team Breast Test is working to streamline production of the training device in preparation for clinical testing.

Leah Sherman, Patricia DaSilva, Shannon Fei and Mille Antwi-Nsiah of the Rice design team Contractionally Obligated took third place for Optoco, a uterine-contraction monitoring device that uses an optical sensor and algorithm to externally monitor contractions more affordably than current standards of care.

Contractionally Obligated, a six-person team from Rice, took third place for Optoco, a uterine-contraction monitoring device. Optoco uses an optical sensor and algorithm to externally monitor contractions more affordably than current standards of care, which would allow nurses and physicians in low-resource settings to improve care for expectant mothers.

The competition also featured teams from Makerere University in Uganda, the National University of Sciences and Technology in Pakistan and the University of Malawi.

Rice 360° Institute for Global Health Director Rebecca Richards-Kortum presents Roger Glass, director of the Fogarty International Center and associate director for international research at the National Institutes of Health, with Rice 360°’s Innovation and Leadership in Global Health Award March 23.

Keynote speaker Dr. Roger Glass, director of the Fogarty International Center and associate director for international research at the National Institutes of Health, reflected on his own career and told students “the future of global health will be advances made by bioengineers.” Glass, who also attended some of Rice’s earliest global health competitions and symposia in 2006 and 2007, shared four global health lessons with student innovators: Start early, have patience, embrace multidisciplinary approaches and take science to the problems.

For his many contributions to global health, Glass was recognized with Rice 360°’s Innovation and Leadership in Global Health Award.

Rebecca Richards-Kortum, director of Rice 360°, said, “Roger is an enthusiastic connector who brings together people and ideas. Through his leadership at the Fogarty Center, he has built the scaffolding needed to put ideas into action. He has had a profound impact on global health, both in his own career and through the many scientists and innovators he has mentored. We can think of no better inspiration to our students.”

Design competition sponsors included the Stephen W. Ley Family Endowment for Global Health and The Lemelson Foundation.