St. John’s Research Institute (SJRI) in Bengaluru is one of the four international sites that will actively collaborate with Cornell University in the USA for development, deployment, clinical validation, and commercialisation of point-of-care (POC) diagnostic devices and technologies.
These devices and technologies will help POC detection of nutritional deficiencies, infections and cancers globally in resource-limited settings where access to better diagnostics can have the largest impact.
The collaborative effort follows an interdisciplinary team led by Cornell University receiving a five-year grant to launch a new centre for engineering, testing, and commercialising POC diagnostic devices that will have international reach.
Tony Raj, Dean and Head, Division of Medical Informatics at SJRI, told The Hindu on Tuesday that the newly established Point-of-Care Technologies for Nutrition, Infection, and Cancer for Global Health (PORTENT) Centre (led by Professors David Erickson at Cornell Engineering and Saurabh Mehta in the Division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University) will initially be a five-year initiative. PORTENT has been set up under the Point-of-Care Technology Research Network (POCTRN) at the National Institutes of Health, U.S.
Four continents
A number of universities and health organisations in four continents will partner with Cornell University in PORTENT. New technologies in the areas of nutrition, infection, and cancer will be invited to join the centre through a global solicitation annually. These will then be validated at four clinical sites: Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City; St. John’s Research Institute in India; the Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral in Ecuador, and the Infectious Diseases Institute in Kampala in Uganda, Dr. Raj said.
“SJRI will facilitate in-house clinical testing and validation of POC devices, collaborate with multidisciplinary teams, conduct assessment of clinical needs in areas anticipated to advance the field of POC testing, and disseminate this information to the technology development community so that it translates into implementation mode. SJRI will also invite new technologies by developers in India to join the centre,” he said.
Malaria
“In the first year for example, two diagnostics companies in India will be validating their malaria POC test in partnership with PORTENT. Over the five years, we are aiming at validating 20 POC devices and technologies from all the four sites put together,” he said.
“Next year we are planning to bring the anaemia phone (developed by Cornell University in the U.S. and validated there) to India. This will help detect iron and micronutrient deficiencies at point-of-care,” Dr. Raj said.
Dr. Raj, who will lead this partnership at SJRI, will work along with Rebecca Kuriyan Raj, Head, Division of Nutrition, and Mary Dias, Head, Division of Infectious Diseases at SJRI.
Funding
PORTENT will be funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), Fogarty International Centre, and the National Centre for Complementary and Integrative Health – components of the National Institutes of Health.
The clinical and validation core will be co-led by Marshall Glesby, professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Weill Cornell Medicine, and Julia Finkelstein, associate professor of epidemiology and nutrition in the Division of Nutritional Sciences. McGill University and Columbia University will provide training and help build capacity for the developers as they tailor their technology and develop business plans to bring their products from lab to market, Dr Raj said.
The need for affordable POC diagnostics was highlighted in a 2021 report from the Lancet Diagnostics Commission that noted that nearly half of the world’s population does not have access to testing for primary care, he added.
