The National Institutes of Health will advance the development of home and point-of-care health technologies with awards to six technology research and development centers across the country. The centers comprise the Point-of-Care Technology Research Network (POCTRN) and will build on the momentum of the original network established in 2007 by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB). In the first year of the new five-year grant period, these six centers will share $9.6 million in total grants.
Through technological advances, healthcare can be delivered closer to the patient, resulting in more timely and convenient care and, ultimately, better outcomes. The POCTRN model builds multidisciplinary partnerships that drive the development and application of the technologies necessary to achieve this goal. The award-winning centers focus on developing innovative point-of-care devices for unmet medical needs in the United States and around the world.
“NIH and NIBIB have long played an important role in guiding and supporting innovative health technologies,” said Bruce J. Tromberg, Ph.D., director of NIBIB. “As POCTRN demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic, point-of-care and home-based technologies are more accessible to populations in low-resource settings and therefore serve a democratizing role in the healthcare sector.”
POCTRN’s technology research and development centers address a variety of uncovered testing, monitoring and treatment areas, such as heart disease, cancer and HIV/AIDS, in a spectrum of settings, from children’s health to global health. The key to this approach is to incorporate clinical and user needs into the technology development process while addressing early barriers to commercialization and implementation. In an extraordinary adaptation of its role during the COVID-19 pandemic, POCTRN expanded to create NIBIB’s Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx®) technology program, which delivered 8 billion COVID-19 tests to the nation and moved testing from central laboratories to the home and point-of-care. Having facilitated the transformation of COVID-19 diagnosis at home and at the point of care, POCTRN will apply this experience and knowledge to a wide range of healthcare needs.
“The POCTRN network has become a prominent awards mechanism for NIBIB and several other NIH institutes that recognize the empowering nature of point-of-care technologies,” said Tiffani Bailey-Lash, Ph.D., director of NIBIB’s POCTRN program. “The centers within the network are known for their impactful technological designs, and supported projects receive specialized expert guidance to overcome a variety of obstacles in technological development, giving them the best chance of success.”
The following centers comprise the fourth cycle of POCTRN awards:
Center for Advancing Points of Care in Heart, Lung, Blood and Sleep Diseases (CAPCaT)Chan School of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts, Worcester and the University of Massachusetts at Lowell
Principal Investigators: Bryan Buchholz, Ph.D.; Nate Hafer, Ph.D.; and David McManus, M.D.
CAPCaT will develop and optimize new technologies at the point of care and at home to improve the diagnosis and treatment of heart, lung, blood and sleep disorders.
Center for Innovation and Translation of Point-of-Care Technologies for Equitable Cancer Care (CITEC)Rice University, Houston
Principal Investigators: Sharmila Anandasabapathy, MD; Rebecca Richards-Kortum, Ph.D.; and Tomasz Tkaczyk, Ph.D.
CITEC will accelerate the development and adoption of new technologies that can be used to improve early cancer detection in low-resource settings in the United States and around the world.
Point-of-Care Technologies for Nutrition, Infections and Cancer for Global Health (PORTENT)Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
Principal Investigators: David Erickson, Ph.D.; and Saurabh Mehta, Sc.D.
PORTENT will focus on primary health care globally, addressing the needs of the most vulnerable in the United States and internationally, and enabling the validation of a broad range of diagnostic technologies on a global scale, while building expertise and developing testing capacity around the world.
Center for Innovative Diagnostics of Infectious Diseases, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
Principal Investigators: Yukari Manabe, MD
This center will accelerate innovation and access to point-of-care infectious disease diagnostic technology to impact global public health.
Northwestern University Center for Innovation in Point-of-Care Technologies for HIV/AIDS and Emerging Infectious Diseases (C-THAN)Evanston, Illinois
Principal Investigators: Chad Achenbach, MD; Sally McFall, Ph.D.; and Robert Murphy, M.D.
C-THAN technologies include point-of-care devices for infection detection and monitoring of HIV/AIDS and its common life-threatening co-infections and comorbidities, including tuberculosis, nontuberculous mycobacteria, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and HIV-associated malignancies.
Atlanta Center for Microsystems Engineering Point-of-Care Technologies (ACME POCT)Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology
Principal Investigators: Wilbur Lam, M.D., Ph.D.; Gregorio Martín, MD; and Eric M. Vogel, Ph.D.
ACME POCT helps and enables inventors across the country who have developed microsystem-based point-of-care technologies to define their specific clinical needs, conduct clinical validation, and refine their technology with the goal of accelerating the path to translation and clinical adoption.
Coordination between all centers is carried out by CIMIT under contract with NIBIB. Each center will use a milestone-based approach to focus resources on developing technologies that demonstrate the greatest likelihood of success.
This year’s POCTRN awards represent an expansion of the program with support from multiple NIH institutes, centers, and offices. In addition to NIBIB, NIH components that support POCTRN centers include the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Fogarty International Center, Office of AIDS Research, Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research, and Office of Disease Prevention.
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About the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB): NIBIB’s mission is to improve health by leading the development and accelerating the application of biomedical technologies. The institute is committed to integrating the physical and engineering sciences with the biological sciences to advance basic research and healthcare. NIBIB supports research and development of emerging technologies within its internal laboratories and through grants, collaborations and training. More information is available on the NIBIB website: https://www.nibib.nih.gov.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 institutes and centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency that conducts and supports basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures of common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit https://www.nih.gov/.
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