A SCOTTISH charity dedicated to ensuring children have access to safe surgeries in developing countries has teamed up with NASA to develop new technologies.
Kids Operating Room (KidsOR) and the US space agency have announced a partnership to research how emerging technology in oxygen generation can be taken to paediatric surgical facilities in the world’s most vulnerable regions.
The technology has been developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) over several years for possible use in future missions on the Moon and Mars.
According to the charity, a lack of access to reliable oxygen supply is a critical issue in hospitals and operating rooms in low-income countries, which is caused by poor infrastructure and supply chain limitations, leaving vulnerable populations at a greater risk of illness.
Millions of lives are lost each year to respiratory infections caused by a lack of oxygen in hospitals with respiratory illnesses being the world’s biggest infectious killer. Some 2.2 million people died from them in 2021.
The partnership will see the Dundee-based KidsOR test the technology, Medical Ceramic Oxygen Generator (M-COG), to generate medical-grade oxygen on-site in hospitals based around the world.
M-COG uses advanced ceramic technology to extract oxygen from the air using a sophisticated process called oxygen ion transport.
As air flows across the surface of the ceramic ion transport material, some of the oxygen in the air is electrochemically split into oxygen ions, and transported across the ceramic membrane, where the oxygen ions recombine into pure oxygen.
Garreth Wood, co-founder and chairman of KidsOR, said using space shuttle technology to help vulnerable children in remote parts of the world is a “dream come true” for the charity.
He said: “Our partnership with NASA has significant and life-changing potential for patients across low-resource settings. Access to surgery in low- and middle-income countries is incredibly challenging, particularly in those areas experiencing war, climate related challenges, or civil unrest.
“I am extremely proud that our expertise in developing complex surgical facilities in low-resource setting, and training the local teams to independently sustain their own service, has made us the perfect partner to work with NASA on this exciting research project.
“Our expert team of engineers here in Scotland and across sub-Saharan Africa are understandably thrilled to be working with NASA to potentially transform care for children. Taking space shuttle technology to the most remote, most vulnerable child and helping save their life – that’s a dream come true for all of us at Kids Operating Room.”
A prototype of the technology was tested at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico and demonstrated that M-COG is capable of producing high-purity oxygen - but is yet to be certified for medical use.
Combining NASA’s advanced technology with KidsOR’s expertise in establishing state-of-the-art surgical facilities, it is hoped that children will no longer die unnecessarily because of a lack of oxygen.
KidsOR will initially test the new technology for use in medical environments at its Centre for Global Operations in Dundee and simultaneously at surgical facilities in Zambia.
The Scottish charity said the technology could be deployed across its 100 surgical centres spread across 40 countries.
John Graf, an engineer at NASA, said: “It is amazing to think that technology being developed to help get humans to Mars can help to save lives along the way.
“While we at NASA often use established technology, the unique demands of space exploration sometimes require us to develop new solutions, which must be thoroughly tested on Earth first.
“The chance to explore how we deploy M-COG in hospitals for Kids Operating Room in low-income countries is a perfect example of this synergy.”
