Changemakers

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CHANGEMAKERS
May 18, 2012 | 3:00 PM | By  | 

Changemakers: Enlisting spiders to fight malaria | 

By Cyan James, special correspondent

A fresh crop of Changemakers has been identified by the Washington Global Health Alliance’s Be the Change student competition. Among the three first place winners was a group of UW students who want to enlist a spider to fight malaria:

Some 250 teams from the region’s high schools, community colleges and undergraduate universities submitted proposals aimed at suggesting solutions to problems in global health. Students came up with solutions to dealing with a number of problems such as the need for safe drinking water, obstetric fistula and HIV diagnosis.

Semi-finalists were treated to an Argosy cruise of Puget Sound Thursday to celebrate their works and recognize the winners

The “UW Spider Trio” said they put in a lot of work on their winning submission, as well as a lot of laughter and camaraderie. Spider Trio’s members Adam Tanaka, Christine Scullywest, and Roshan Mahoney learned of their first place award in the undergraduate category on the Argosy — and are among those who will be feted during a VIP reception at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in July.

The other two first place winners were High Five from Glacier Peak High School for their educational program designed to impart health and hygiene information in low-resource communities and Educational Advocates from Seattle Central Community College for their community awareness initiative on deafness. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, Changemakers, Changemakers, Washington Global Health Alliance
CHANGEMAKERS
May 11, 2012 | 9:33 AM | By  | 

How a passing comment on an old medical test won a $100K Gates grant | 

Tom Paulson

Gates Grand Challenges award winner Kathleen Bongiovanni demonstrates how a simple idea may save the lives of millions of premature babies

Earlier this week, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced the latest 100 winners of $100,000 grants from its Grand Challenges Exploration program aimed at supporting high-risk, creative approaches to improving health and fighting poverty in poor countries.

Celebrated for funding “wild” and “wacky” ideas, this year’s batch of Gates Grand Challenge winners included proposals to develop, as the AP reported, unmanned drones to deliver vaccines, tattoos for monitoring pregnancy and a “tuberculosis breathalyzer.”

The Seattle Times followed up with an overview of the three local winners:

  • Kathleen Bongiovanni, a program manager at Seattle Children’s Research Institute, won for proposing a simple test to identify premature babies.
  • Two immunization technology improvement teams at PATH also each won a $100,000 Gates grant. Lauren Franzel of PATH won to do research using bar codes to improve vaccine delivery logistics. PATH’s Shawn McGuire and Nancy Muller got support for work aimed finding better refrigeration techniques during vaccine transport in poor countries.

None of these three local winners’ projects sounded too wacky to me.

PATH has long been a leader in creating new vaccine technologies so not much surprise or wackiness or wildness there.

Bubble check diagnostics

No, the wildest story here is about how Bongiovanni got the idea for her project and applied for the Gates grant despite a bit of skepticism about her chances from more experienced colleagues.

“It was just a passing comment,” she explained. Bongiovanni works in program administration for a project focused on respiratory diseases caused by premature birth at Seattle Children’s Research Institute. She is, in fact, pretty low on the totem pole. Her mentor there, Dr. Tom Hansen, is an expert neonatalogist and, well, an old guy.

During a routine meeting, Bongiovanni overheard Hansen talking about the ‘old days’ and this abandoned method of testing babies for respiratory distress by combining routine amniocentesis fluid with alcohol.

Hansen mentioned it in passing, she said, as he went on to discuss more sophisticated, modern analytical means for diagnosing respiratory distress in newborns.

“Basically, you’re just looking for foam,” Bongiovanni said. “It’s a beautifully simple and cheap test.”

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Changemakers, Health, Science, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Changemakers, child mortality, Grand Challenges, Kathleen Bongiovanni, premature birth, respiratory distress, Seattle Children's Research Institute
CHANGEMAKERS
April 13, 2012 | 1:22 PM | By  | 

Hooked on science by accident, Kimberly Choi puts it to work in the global community | 

Quick BIO: Kimberly Choi, 23, is a research technician at Seattle Biomedical Research Institute (Seattle BioMed) and a University of Washington graduate.

“Changemakers” is our new series exploring how young people, connected and globally aware, are working to change the world. If you know a young person (think “Millennial” or “Gen Y”) committed to change, global health and the fight against poverty, please send the person’s name, short bio and contact info to Jake Ellison at jellison@kplu.org.

By Lisa Stiffler, special correspondent

Kimberly Choi wound up testing malaria vaccines on mice quite by accident.

“I thought I was going to study Spanish literature,” Choi recalled.

But in 2006, Choi was encouraged by a high school biology teacher to participate in Seattle BioMed’s outreach program, BioQuest, which gives students a chance to do hands-on research.

“I thought that scientists were one way, and I was another,” she said. Instead, she wound up liking the work and built her education around that passion.

Now Choi works at Seattle BioMed, an organization focused on testing and developing vaccines to fight infectious diseases.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Changemakers, Changemakers
CHANGEMAKERS
April 6, 2012 | 11:59 AM | By  | 

Ines Tucakovic puts humanitarian goals to work doing TB research | 

Quick BIO: Ines Tucakovic, 27, senior clinical research assistant with Seattle’s Infectious Disease Research Institute

 

“Changemakers” is our new series exploring how young people, connected and globally aware, are working to change the world. If you know a young person (think “Millennial” or “Gen Y”) committed to change, global health and the fight against poverty, please send the person’s name, short bio and contact info to Jake Ellison at jellison@kplu.org.

By Lisa Stiffler, special correspondent

 

Ines Tucakovic was only a child when she and her family fled the war in their native Bosnia. But her job at Seattle’s Infectious Disease Research Institute has a connection to home.

As part of the research team in the institute’s clinical immunology lab, Tucakovic prepares protocols for clinical trials being conducted internationally. The trials are for vaccines for tuberculosis and a parasite called leishmaniasis. Tucakovic also processes the samples taken from patients in Venezuela, Peru, India, Columbia and Sudan.

If Tucakovic and her team are successful and better vaccines become more widely available, they can curb some of the illnesses and deaths that are caused by preventable diseases – including diseases that killed people in her homeland.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Changemakers, Changemakers