Africa Working Group: Research Spotlight
The Africa Working Group provides a forum for resident faculty, graduate students, and outside scholars to present and discuss cutting edge research on Africa. Participants, who come from a range of disciplines, share a common interest in investigating Africa’s past, present, and future, as well as Africa’s place in the larger global order. The group also sponsors Africanist events, enriching the study of Africa on campus and building on growing student interest in the region.
Cochairs: Paul Ocobock and Ellis Adams
Graduate Assistants: Adedoyin Okanlawon, Will O'Brien and Debora Rogo
Got Fakes? Paper Microfluidics and the Hunt for Bad Quality Medicines
Marya Lieberman
Nancy Dee Professor of Cancer Research, University of Notre Dame
In low- and middle-income countries, about one in ten medicine products is substandard or falsified. Samples of antimalarial drugs made out of starch and chalk, antibiotics cut with talcum powder, and chemotherapy drugs manufactured at half their required concentration are not hypotheticals -- they exist, and they are reaching patients.
How do these products get into the supply chain, and more importantly, how can chemists help get them out?
This talk will explore a point-of-use testing device developed twelve years ago: the paper analytical device, or PAD. Learn how this paper microfluidic device works and how it is being implemented with partners in sub-Saharan Africa to detect and remove bad quality medicines from circulation.