NIH Point of Care Technology Research Network awards

The NIH is advancing the development of home-based and point-of-care health technologies with awards to six technology research and development centres across the United States.

The following centres comprise the fourth cycle of POCTRN awards:
1. Center for Advancing Point of Care in Heart, Lung, Blood and Sleep Diseases (CAPCaT), University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Worcester, and University of Massachusetts at Lowell Principal investigators: Bryan Buchholz, Ph.D.; Nate Hafer, Ph.D.; and David McManus, M.D.

CAPCaT will develop and optimize novel point-of-care and home-based technologies to improve the diagnosis and management of heart, lung, blood and sleep disorders.

2. Center for Innovation and Translation of Point of Care Technologies for Equitable Cancer Care (CITEC), Rice University, Houston Principal investigators: Sharmila Anandasabapathy, M.D.; Rebecca Richards-Kortum, Ph.D.; and Tomasz Tkaczyk, Ph.D.

CITEC will accelerate the development and adoption of new technologies that can be used to improve the early detection of cancer in low-resource settings in the United States and globally.

3. Point of Care Technologies for Nutrition, Infection, and Cancer for Global Health (PORTENT), Cornell University, Ithaca, New York Principal investigators: David Erickson, Ph.D.; and Saurabh Mehta, Sc.D.

PORTENT will focus on primary health care globally, address the needs of the most vulnerable in the United States and internationally, and enable a broad range of diagnostic technologies to be validated on a global scale while simultaneously developing expertise and building testing capacity worldwide.

4. Center for Innovative Diagnostics for Infectious Diseases, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore Principal investigators: Yukari Manabe, M.D.

This centre will accelerate innovation and access to infectious disease diagnostic point-of-care technology to impact global public health.

5. Center for Innovation in Point-of-Care Technologies for HIV/AIDS and Emerging Infectious Diseases at Northwestern University (C-THAN), Evanston, Illinois Principal investigators: Chad Achenbach, M.D.; Sally McFall, Ph.D.; and Robert Murphy, M.D.

C-THAN’s technologies include point-of-care devices for detection of infection and monitoring of HIV/AIDS and its common potentially fatal coinfections and comorbidities, including tuberculosis, non-tuberculous mycobacterium, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and HIV-associated malignancies.

6. Atlanta Center for Microsystems Engineered Point-of-Care Technologies (ACME POCT), Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology Principal investigators: Wilbur Lam, M.D., Ph.D.; Gregory Martin, M.D.; and Eric M. Vogel, Ph.D.

ACME POCT assists and enables inventors from across the country who have developed microsystems-based point-of-care technologies in defining their specific clinical needs, conducting clinical validation, and refining their technology with the objective of accelerating the path to translation and clinical adoption.