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Plenary Sessions

nonviral vectors for direct cellular reprogramming. Kam has published American Academy of Arts and Sciences. After receiving a B.S. in Physics
more than 300 peer-reviewed research manuscripts with over 26,000 and Mathematics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1985,
citations and holds more than 50 issued patents. His work has been Rebecca continued her graduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of
recognized by a Young Investigator Research Achievement Award of the Technology, where she received an M.S. in Physics in 1987 and a PhD in
Controlled Release Society, Distinguished Scientist Award of the Medical Physics in 1990.
International Journal of Nanomedicine, and Clemson Award for Applied
Research of the Society for Biomaterials. Kam is the Editor-in-Chief of
Biomaterials, a member of the National Academy of Inventors, and a

member of the USA National Academy of Engineering. He received his
PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

PLENARY TITLE: REBECCA RICHARDS-KORTUM: POINT-OF-CARE
DIAGNOSTICS FOR LOW-RESOURCE SETTINGS
Date/Time: Wednesday, February 24, 08:30-09:15 AM
Location: Grand Ballroom
Present: Rebecca Richards-Kortum, Rice University

Session Description: There are many barriers to
successful development and dissemination of new
technologies to improve health care in low-resource
settings. These include a lack of infrastructure (e.g.,
reliable electrical power, clean water), lack of trained
personnel, limited financial resources for health care that consequently limits
availability of healthcare equipment and consumables, and lack of functional
health systems to track results and patients for effective follow-up care. To
be useful, new technologies must be affordable, robust, simple to use, and
capable of functioning in a setting with limited infrastructure. Advances in
optical technologies, molecular recognition, and low power sensors now
offer the ability to design low-cost platforms for point-of-care (POC)
diagnostics. Efforts to integrate molecular imaging together with miniature
microscopes are now yielding new POC diagnostics for both infectious and
chronic diseases. Driven by advances in consumer electronics, high
resolution imaging can be obtained with low cost devices; advances in digital
signal processing provide the ability to automate analysis. This talk will
highlight strategies that have proven to be effective for design of high
performance, affordable diagnostic technologies with promise to improve
health care in low-resources settings. We are using these advances to
improve early detection of cervical, esophageal, colon, breast, and oral
cancer; clinical trials are underway in Houston, Brazil, and China. Finally, we
will discuss the potential to combine point-of-care detection and treatment of
early disease in low-resource settings and opportunities to use these
approaches in both low- and high-resource settings.
Bio: Rebecca Richards-Kortum is the Stanley C. Moore Professor of
Bioengineering at Rice University. Previously, she held the Cockrell Family
Chair in Engineering #10 and was a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at
the University of Texas at Austin, where she was also a Distinguished
Teaching Professor. Guided by the belief that all of the world’s people
deserve access to health innovation, Rebecca’s research and teaching
focus on developing low-cost, high-performance technology for low-re-
source settings. She is known for providing vulnerable populations in the
developing world access to life-saving health technology, focusing on
diseases and conditions that cause high morbidity and mortality. Rebec-
ca’s work in appropriate point-of-care screening technologies has earned
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her induction into the National Academy of Engineering, the National
Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Inventors, and the