Medical Engineering to Tackle Child Mortality, HIV/AIDS

The intersection of science, medicine, and data informatics will likely be the source of future medical engineering breakthroughs, according to the doctors, researchers, and scientists at MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering & Science (IMES) inaugural symposium, held during the fall semester.  “Be bold, think big, and save the world,” President Rafael Reif told participants who are tackling new treatments for child mortality, HIV/AIDS, and other diseases.

Speakers described substantial global challenges:

•    Nearly half of the 6.6 million children under the age of five who die each year worldwide could be saved using existing medical treatments.

•    By 2050, worldwide reported cases of Alzheimer’s are estimated to nearly triple to 277 million.

•    Only half of the 33 million people living with HIV have received treatment.

Costs are also a critical issue. In the US alone, national health expenditures account for nearly 18 percent of GDP in 2011, according to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and are nearly two and a half times that of other OECD countries. Costs are expected to rise as the nation—and much of the world—grapple with health care for an increasing elderly population.

Surprisingly, health care technologies are often part of the problem, because they further drive up costs. Emery Brown, IMES associate director, called for participants to innovate wisely by developing “frugal engineering” ideas.

President Rafael Reif

In third-world countries, medical innovations not only need to be frugal, but sometimes they even need to be more technologically advanced than those in the developed world. “All too often products are not good enough for the countries where they need to be deployed,” said Trevor Mundel, president of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Health Program.

For example, vaccines must be made to withstand high temperatures for years in storage because refrigeration is not always an option for third-world clinics. Clinicians also need real-time tools for diagnosis to so contagious patients will not be sent home to infect their communities.

The symposium, which can be viewed online, was part of MIT’s broader initiative to improve global healthcare. IMES will house the interdisciplinary MIT-Harvard Health Sciences and Technology graduate program and build partnerships with MIT scientists and engineers and doctors at Boston-area teaching hospitals.