• Solving the Ventilator Shortage with Windshield Wiper Parts

    Hospitals across Texas had an estimated 3,730 ventilators in 2009 during the H1N1 pandemic, according to research published in 2017. That supply is enough to handle patient needs during mild to moderate pandemic scenarios. However, during a more severe scenario, statewide projected demand would top 10,000 ventilators, the research found, far exceeding 2009 resources. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin are building a new type of ventilator made of cheap, widely available materials to help fill the demand created by the spread of COVID-19 for these critical devices that help patients breathe.

  • Engineers Develop 3-D-Printed Ventilator Splitters

    In response to a pressing need for more ventilators to treat critically ill COVID-19 patients, a team led by Johns Hopkins University engineers is developing and prototyping a 3D-printed splitter that will allow a single ventilator to treat multiple patients. Though medical professionals have expressed concerns about the safety and effectiveness of sharing ventilators, the team has designed this tool to address those concerns. Their prototype, developed in response to the urgent need for more ventilators to treat patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome caused by COVID-19, aims to address concerns about cross-contamination and correctly managing air flow to patients.

  • 3D-Printer Owners Rally to Create NHS Face Masks

    Some 1,400 3D-printer owners have pledged to use their machines to help make face shields for the NHS.
    The BBC reports that the 3DCrowd UK group was started by palliative-medicine doctor James Coxon, and is now looking to recruit more volunteers.
    It says thousands of its 3D-printed masks have already been made and donated to hospitals, GPs, pharmacies, paramedics and social-care practices.
    Healthcare workers say they are having to put themselves at risk because of a lack of personal protective equipment.
    “We are basically asking all the people around the country with 3D printers to join our project to create face shields for hospitals and other health workers,” said Gen Ashley from 3DCrowd UK.

     

  • OxVent Gets Green Light by U.K. Government to Proceed to Next Stage of Testing

    It was announced last night that Oxvent team has been shortlisted by the U.K. government to go to the next stage of testing for safety and usability of the company’s ventilator prototype. This is following the government’s recent callout for rapidly deployable ventilator designs in response to the Coronavirus pandemic and forecasted acute shortage of ventilators.
    Oxvent says that this green light enables the company to test the prototype ventilators. If the ventilator then passes the required MHRA safety tests, it will rapidly move into production with the medical manufacturing company, Smith and Nephew (S&N) based in Hull.
    After manufacture it would be deployed through the NHS. “Our design could also be used in other healthcare settings,” Oxvent says.

  • “CoronaCheck” Website Combats Spread of Misinformation

    Researchers have developed an automated system that uses machine learning, data analysis, and human feedback to automatically verify statistical claims about the new coronavirus. “CoronaCheck,” based on ongoing research from Cornell University’s Immanuel Trummer, launched internationally in March and has already been used more than 9,600 times. The database – now available in English, French, and Italian – checks claims on COVID-19’s spread based on reliable sources such as the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

  • Saving the IoT from Botnets

    The advent of the Internet of Thing, essentially smart devices with connectivity to the internet has wrought many benefits, but with it comes the problem of how to cope with third party users with malicious or criminal intent.

  • Not All Privacy Apps Are Created Equal

    New privacy laws like Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) have spawned a new industry of companies and platforms advertising that they can anonymize your data and be compliant with the law. But MIT researcher Aloni Cohen says that he has his doubts about these claims, and his team’s latest work shows that there’s reason to be skeptical.

  • Floating Wind Turbines on the Rise

    Over 26,000 megawatts (MW) of planned offshore wind capacity exists in the offshore wind development pipeline. Rapidly falling technology costs for offshore wind, including floating offshore wind technology, have aided the growth of this pipeline and promise to help wind become a significant part of the power mix in coastal communities.

  • Resilient Teams: How Harvard Innovation Labs Ventures Are Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic

    During a time when the world faces unprecedented challenges due to COVID-19, it’s more important than ever to share the stories of the innovators and entrepreneurs who are working tirelessly to keep people healthy and connected to each other.  Harvard says that many startups in the Harvard Innovation Labs Spring Venture Program are creating products and services that have the potential to reduce the spread of the virus, improve patient care, and create community when in person gatherings are not possible. We’ve also recently seen numerous examples of former ventures re-focusing their efforts on inspiring initiatives related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we’ve highlighted a few of the products and services that current and former Harvard Innovation Labs ventures are working on. In the coming weeks, we will update this post regularly as our ventures continue to respond and adapt to this global challenge. 

  • There Are Many COVID-19 Tests in the U.S. – How Are They Being Regulated?

    When it comes to COVID-19 testing in the United States, the situation is about as messy as it gets. The U.S. went from having no tests, or assays, available for COVID-19 diagnostics to having multiple different tests available in a span of just a few weeks. Today more than 230 test developers have alerted the Food and Drug Administration that they are requesting emergency authorization for their tests; 20 have been granted. And 110 laboratories around the country, including my own, are also using their own tests. Having this number of diagnostic tests available to detect a single virus in such a short time frame is unprecedented.

  • Cloud-Based Electronic System: Helping First Responders Better React to Natural Disasters

    Every year natural disasters kill around 90,000 people and affect close to 160 million people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Such disasters also result in the destruction of the physical environment of the affected people. Now, researchers have developed a new tool to help first responders and disaster relief organizations better provide assistance to developing countries. The researchers created a cloud-based supply chain management system for emergency response to track inventory and distribution in countries struck by disasters.

  • U.K. Considers Virus-Tracing App to Ease Lockdown

    A coronavirus app which alerts people if they have recently been in contact with someone testing positive for the virus “could play a critical role” in limiting lockdowns, scientists advising the government have said.
    The location-tracking tech would enable a week’s worth of manual detective work to be done in an instant, they say. The academics say no-one should be forced to enroll - at least initially.
    U.K. health chiefs have confirmed they are exploring the idea.
    The study by the team at the University of Oxford’s Big Data Institute and Nuffield Department of Medicine was published in the journal Science.
    Leo Kelion writes for the BBC that the study proposes that an app would record people’s GPS location data as they move about their daily lives. This would be supplemented by users scanning QR (quick response) codes posted to public amenities in places where a GPS signal is inadequate, as well as Bluetooth signals.
    If a person starts feeling ill, it is suggested they use the app to request a home test. And if it comes back positive for Covid-19, then an instant signal would be sent to everyone they had been in close contact with over recent days.

  • “Pandemic Drone” to Detect Coronavirus

    A “pandemic drone” to remotely monitor and detect people with infectious respiratory conditions is being developed. The drone will be fitted with a specialized sensor and computer vision system that can monitor temperature, heart and respiratory rates, as well as detect people sneezing and coughing in crowds, offices, airports, cruise ships, aged care homes and other places where groups of people may work or congregate.

  • An Experimental Peptide Could Block COVID-19

    In hopes of developing a possible treatment for Covid-19, a team of MIT chemists has designed a drug candidate that they believe may block coronaviruses’ ability to enter human cells. The potential drug is a short protein fragment, or peptide, that mimics a protein found on the surface of human cells. Anne Trafton writes in MIT News that the researchers have shown that their new peptide can bind to the viral protein that coronaviruses use to enter human cells, potentially disarming it.
    The MIT team reported its initial findings in a preprint posted on bioRxiv, an online preprint server, on March 20. They have sent samples of the peptide to collaborators who plan to carry out tests in human cells.

  • Race against Time: The Complex Task of Developing a Vaccine against the New Coronavirus

    University of Munich virologist Gerd Sutter talks about the complex task of developing a vaccine against the new coronavirus – and the approach he has adopted, which is already being tested against the related coronavirus MERS. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 40 projects are already underway with the aim of producing a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2. Sutter’s comments: “Yes, a lot of things are now happening. Among them are projects which, like ours, are inspired by the protective effects of the MERS vaccine, but other vector-based approaches are also being tried. Then there is a whole series of projects that involve the use of nucleic acids, such as those being pursued by Moderna or by CureVac in Tübingen. At this point, it’s important to make use of all available technologies. If you asked me a year ago, I would have said that we would be very pleased if it took less than 2 to 3 years to get from the discovery of a new virus to a Phase-I trial of a new vaccine. Now, we can probably reckon with a year or thereabouts.”