Students from Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi are developing a mobile app which will be able to alert Covid-19 patients whether they are at high risk of severe medical complications from the virus.
The application collects data from the smartphone of patients before sending the alert, if necessary.
It is one of 14 research projects launched by the university under its Covid-19 R&D programme – five projects focused on epidemiology, six projects focused on diagnostics and medical devices, and three projects focused on digital tools for understanding, mitigating and providing resiliency against disease spread.
Dr Steve Griffiths, senior vice-president, research and development, Khalifa University, said: “The university’s measures will place its strongest research assets and ideas at the front lines in the global fight against coronavirus. Through mobilising its R&D resources in response to Covid-19, Khalifa University is setting the perfect role for academic institutions in the region.”
Researchers at the Healthcare Engineering Innovation Centre (HEIC) have already completed the development of an emergency ventilator prototype designed with affordable, easily accessible materials and 3D printing to meet the growing regional and global ventilator caused by Covid-19.
The Biotechnology Centre (BTC) is leveraging the its genomic analysis capabilities to validate the sensitivity of commercially available polymerase chain reaction (PCR) Covid-19 medical test kits.
For digital tools, meanwhile, Khalifa University’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Intelligent Systems Institute, is exploring the most efficient and effective ways to gather a broad spectrum of data related to Covid-19 and then use data analysis, particularly AI, and data modelling to harness actionable insights.
At the same time, a cross-disciplinary team has already developed an open-source epidemiological model that can help decision makers visualize the impact of different mitigation interventions, such as universal social isolation or selective isolation of the elderly.
© Arabian Business
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