Precise Advanced Technologies and Health Systems for Underserved Populations
The Precise Advanced Technologies and Health Systems for Underserved Populations (PATHS-UP) Engineering Research Center (ERC) was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2017. The goal of all NSF-ERC funded programs is to integrate engineering research and education with technological innovation to transform national prosperity, health and security.
The specific vision of our PATHS-UP ERC is to change the paradigm for the health of underserved populations by developing revolutionary and cost-effective technologies and systems at the point-of-care. The initial PATHS-UP technologies and systems are designed to help with chronic diseases, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, which are leading causes of morbidity and mortality world-wide. Chronic diseases are particularly devastating in underserved communities in the United States where they are contracted at a higher rate than the national average. In these underserved communities, chronic diseases are increasingly a major cause of disability, even for younger people, and lead to poor quality of life and high health care expenditures. Thus, the burden of chronic disease is a grand challenge that requires cost-effective technologies to reduce mortality rates, emergency room visits and hospitalizations, which disproportionately drive up healthcare costs. Technologies are also needed to help prevent or delay the disease, reducing the incidence of secondary complications and enhancing life quality.
Thus, to accomplish our vision, the PATHS-UP mission is 1) to engineer transformative, robust, and affordable, technologies and systems to improve healthcare access, enhance the quality of service and life, and reduce the cost of healthcare in underserved populations and 2) to recruit and educate a diverse group of scientists and engineers who are ready to lead the future in developing enabling technologies to improve health in underserved communities.
Underserved communities in every U.S. state have higher prevalence and less access to equitable healthcare services. Thus, many people in these communities go undiagnosed or are diagnosed late, which can lead to serious consequences. To address this challenge, PATHS-UP will initially develop advanced technologies to prevent, delay the onset, and manage diabetes and cardiovascular disease. This requires both the development of transformational health technologies and systems and a paradigm shift in how these technologies are integrated into communities. Beyond the obvious societal health impact of the center’s systems, the students, post-docs and faculty nurtured by the center’s intellectual community will also be a significant outcome of PATHS-UP.
PATHS-UP will develop transformative hand-held and wearable engineered systems to monitor key biomarkers (biochemical, biophysical and behavioral) of chronic disease at the point-of-care.
The research is broken down into four research thrusts:
Thrust 1: Amplification biochips and implantable bar-code sensors
Thrust 2: Mobile computational imaging and spectroscopy systems
Thrust 3: Wearable sensing and imaging technologies
Thrust 4: Remote bio-behavioral inference and patient response
These thrusts will lead to engineered systems and enabling technologies founded on rigorous research in biomaterials, nanoscale systems, sample enrichment, computational imaging, multimodal data integration and machine learning. The testbeds will include one-of-a-kind in vitro phantoms, human subject studies in controlled lab environments and patients in underserved communities.
Developing and integrating these transformational systems into communities requires a multidisciplinary team, including engineers, medical doctors, public health experts, industry professionals and community health leaders. The team will garner input from all stakeholders and use participatory design and community engagement to prevent PATHS-UP from merely throwing technologies at these communities, and instead develop technologies that seamlessly integrate into their lives.
Texas A&M University
University of California at Los Angeles
Rice University
Florida International University
Notice: Please contact international@erc-assoc.org if you represent this Research Institution and have identified any required additions or modifications to the above information.