Chidozie Elvis Chidi-Ezeama has plenty of strings to his bow — and while he's an accomplished violinist, the most important of those strings isn't music, but his work on malaria detection.
After studying to become a physician in his home country of Nigeria, Mr Chidi-Ezeama, 34, moved to Adelaide in 2019 to pursue studies in biomedical engineering at Flinders University.
"Practising as a doctor was really a bit frustrating for me," he told ABC Radio Adelaide's Jules Schiller.
"The reason I got into med school and did the whole eight years of study was because I wanted to help people, but then you start practising.
"The people who need this help are poor and they can't afford [it], because they just can't pay for it, so you just watch them die gradually."
Mr Chidi-Ezeama — who goes by his middle name Elvis in tribute to a family friend who was himself named after the American rock 'n' roll legend, and died during his country's civil war — said malaria was one of the biggest medical challenges confronting the developing world.
According to the World Health Organization's most recent global malaria report, Nigeria accounted for 27 per cent of the 241 million total cases in 2020, and almost 32 per cent of the 627,000 deaths.
For his master's thesis, Mr Chidi-Ezeama has been looking into ways of reducing those numbers.
"If you don't detect the malaria effectively, then giving a medication is as useless as not giving one, because there are many strains of malaria and you have to know which one is which," he said.
"I was very sure that that was exactly what I wanted to study.
"Flinders University had a program for biomedical engineering masters, and more so for people who weren't exactly engineers, so they had a pathway."
He has been working on a small prototype detection device that could serve as a more affordable alternative to existing — but much more expensive — machines.
"There's one we found in the market that's up to $US25,000," he said.
"Nobody would ever be able to buy that in Nigeria or any other developing country in Africa, so the goal was to design one that's cheap to produce, that can be easily maintained and can be used in rural Africa.
"That's why the 3D printing came in, because 3D printing is really cheap."
'Rare blend of skills'
In recognition of his efforts, Mr Chidi-Ezeama was singled out for special honours by international student support agency StudyAdelaide.
He was named the winner in the postgraduate category at the state's 2022 International Student Awards.
The formal citation praised his "thirst to learn", his "positive outlook and inner drive", and his "rare blend of medical and engineering skills".
"Elvis has many opportunities to continue to learn and get real industry experience once he graduates, leading to him achieving his goal to make medical devices affordable and available to all people," StudyAdelaide said.
Like his famous namesake Elvis Presley, who demonstrated an early affinity for gospel music, Mr Chidi-Ezeama is an experienced church musician, and plays at the Seventh-day Adventist Church at Brighton.
In early 2020, his church connections led him to Kangaroo Island where, shortly after his arrival in Australia, he was volunteering to help communities amid the bushfire crisis.
"I was just very new to Australia and they said, 'Hey, the bushfire's just happened and some farmers have just lost their farms' … and so I was happy to go there," he said.
"Sometimes it could mean passing them a food hamper, it could mean helping them with accommodation."
Mr Chidi-Ezeama's intentions for his own innovations are characterised by a similar altruism.
He would not only love to develop his prototype, but make it as accessible as possible.
"We have proof of concept," he said.
"If I could make them, it'd obviously be very affordable. It's not rocket science."
