‘If you’ll be able to simplify the know-how, you do not want a physician or a extremely certified technician to work on the know-how; even an Asha well being employee or an identical entrance line well being employee can use it with minimal coaching.’

IMAGE: Professor Suman Chakraborty. Photograph: Twitter/ANI

The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in 2013.

The J C Bose Fellowship in 2018.

The G D Birla Award in 2021.

The Infosys Prize in 2022.

Some of the foremost awards Suman Chakraborty, a professor on the Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur, has gained.

But none of those awards can match what he has been doing for rural healthcare by means of his analysis.

“What we are doing is not even 10% of what is needed. We have only introduced the technology; it has to be a part of the healthcare system and not present in an isolated manner here and there. It has to be a national movement,” Professor Chakraborty tells Rediff.com‘s Shobha Warrier

Your analysis has been on growing units that might assist rural healthcare. Is there any explicit incident that caught your consideration to this usually uncared for space?

If you have a look at the journey of any researcher, you will notice there are specific issues which occur by probability, relatively with out a lot planning.

You develop sure insights from expertise and that direct you to 1 explicit route. That is the case with me too.

I labored on micro fluidics and its purposes on healthcare, however not significantly specializing in rural healthcare.

Though IIT-Kharagpur the place I work has a township, it’s principally situated in a rural space.

There is a railway station right here and if you happen to transcend the railway station, the state of affairs is completely completely different. It is like another rural space you see in India.

It is tough to not discover the large distinction and distinction between the form of amenities and entry to amenities now we have at IIT and a spot that’s only a kilometre away from IIT.

People there should not have both affordability or accessibility to healthcare, or a mixture of those two.

It was a disturbing state of affairs…

Definitely. It nonetheless is disturbing.

The focus of our work has at all times been on medical diagnostics, however once I seen this disturbing disparity, we shifted our focus to the under-served sections of our society. That means, the applied sciences we use now can be utilized within the subject and never in labs the place you might have air-conditioning, refrigeration and high-end machines.

We have tried to resolve the issue ultimately, however we’re but to return out with a strong resolution that may resolve the issue utterly.

Yes, we might resolve it in such a means that it’s higher than what it was earlier.

If you have a look at the technological developments in healthcare, they’re completed with the belief that everyone can afford it.

You have these high-end labs and diagnostic centres manned by certified technicians and medical doctors in large hospitals which aren’t accessible to everybody. Even if they’re accessible, not many can afford them.

Reports say 80% of medical doctors in India work in city areas. Do you assume know-how alone can resolve plenty of healthcare deficiencies in rural areas?

Technology alone can’t resolve the issue fully, however most of it.

If you’ll be able to simplify the know-how, you do not want a physician or a extremely certified technician to work on the know-how; even an Asha well being employee or an identical entrance line well being employee can use it with minimal coaching.

Does that imply you had been simplifying the know-how in order that they will use it within the rural areas?

Yes. That’s the place the problem comes; simplifying the know-how with out compromising on the efficiency. When you simplify know-how, there may be at all times a hazard of compromising on accuracy.

So, what we had been growing needed to be easy but correct and in addition cost-effective.

Initially, you can’t go for simplification of know-how as as it’s possible you’ll miss some scientific parts.

It is a two-step course of for us. First, we develop the know-how within the lab so that we are going to know the nitty-gritties of the know-how. Then, we transfer on to simplifying it.

Can you give us an instance? For instance, you might have developed a tool to examine the haemoglobin stage of people within the subject and never within the lab…

There is a classical check utilized in all of the labs which might be guide, semi-automated or totally automated.

What we did was, we tried to grasp the precept after which implement the precept on a chunk of paper.

We use only one drop of blood from the finger onto to a strip of paper and get the consequence inside a minute.

The quantity of reagent we use additionally may be very much less, thus decreasing the fee.

What we do is, design the paper in such a means that the identical precept we use in labs works on the paper too, that’s the identical chemistry and identical response.

Is it an extraordinary paper?

It’s a filter paper. When you examine the outcomes of the check completed on the paper and in addition in a lab, you will notice that the outcomes are kind of the identical.

Is it for the preliminary analysis that these kits are used?

You can deal with it nearly as good as any commonplace lab check.

The subsequent step after the check is, take an image of the color of the blood to examine the extent of haemoglobin.

For that, we maintain the strip in a field, and with the assistance of a wise cellphone digicam, the image of the picture is taken. Then the evaluation of the color of the blood is completed by the app that’s formatted within the cellphone.

The picture evaluation and interpretation is completed routinely by the cellphone and the particular person taking the check would not must do something.

Remember we don’t count on the particular person, taking the check, for instance as Asha employee to know something in regards to the know-how.

When the consequence comes on the app interface, will probably be accessible to any physician who’s sitting in an enormous metropolis. Like you mentioned, 80% of the medical doctors are situated within the city areas.

After wanting into the check consequence and the affected person’s historical past, the physician can instantly give the primary stage of advice.

For instance, if the haemoglobin stage is extraordinarily low, and the affected person requires an instantaneous blood transfusion, the caregiver can take him to a spot the place the affected person might be administered blood.

If it is just gentle anaemia, the physician might prescribe drugs or dietary adjustments.

IMAGE: Professor Suman Chakraborty and researchers at IIT-Kharagpur are growing a know-how to supply electrical energy from garments drying in open house. Photograph: Twitter/ANI

Was this the primary system you developed?

The first one was to check the glucose stage within the blood. The glucometer that’s typically utilized by individuals is kind of costly for an individual residing within the rural space.

We additionally developed one other system to examine the creatinine stage as kidney is the primary organ that will get affected by uncontrolled diabetes.

Then, now we have a tool to examine the lipid profile.

We have this perception that solely individuals within the city areas endure from excessive ldl cholesterol. No, these within the rural areas are also affected.

The illnesses which we beforehand regarded as related to urbanisation are there within the rural areas additionally due to the life model adjustments.

Diabetes impacts rural India extra as a result of they lack amenities to examine the sugar stage periodically.

The concept behind all our innovations are, there’s a want for early detection of illnesses.

Do you employ the identical paper strip for all of the assessments, for instance for haemoglobin, creatinine and glucose?

The paper is identical however we use completely different reagents for various assessments.

Can we are saying nearly all of the frequent illnesses are tackled on the preliminary stage by means of your units?

Yes, you’ll be able to say that. We have units for these fundamental assessments. Then we even have units to diagnose infectious illnesses like flu with which we are able to diagnose TB additionally which is a significant illness in rural India.

We use molecular diagnostics for infectious illnesses which is likely one of the most tough diagnostic applied sciences. But now we have created a transportable system which is a substitute for the RT-PCR machine. This machine we developed through the covid time is called COVIRAP.

This machine is a 1ft x 1ft x 1ft field and it may well carry out the check like an RT-PCR machine, and the check outcomes might be recognized inside 40-45 minutes.

Though we developed it for covid assessments through the covid interval, subsequently we use it influenza check. Now, we use it to detect TB.

The benefit is, you should use the identical system to do completely different assessments through the use of completely different strips of paper with completely different reagents.

You have additionally developed a tool to detect oral most cancers…

If you discover, the system we spoke about earlier require physique fluids to check.

The system we developed to detect oral most cancers doesn’t require any physique fluid; it’s completed by means of imaging.

Though there are a number of causes for oral most cancers, majority of the sufferers are tobacco or gutka customers, they usually belong to the group who should not have entry to early detection or care.

If detected early, any ulceration within the mouth might be prevented from changing into most cancers by altering their life-style. A lot of individuals could possibly be saved whether it is detected early.

What now we have developed is a tool which seems to be like a torch with a thermal digicam with which we are able to take the image of any ulceration contained in the mouth.

The picture we seize from contained in the mouth is temperature at completely different factors. The algorithm now we have developed will convert the temperature into displaying the blood move within the space.

If there may be most cancers in an space, new blood vessels develop (angiogenesis). There shall be a big change within the blood move sample in an space when there may be most cancers or pre-cancer.

You have used AI (Artificial Intelligence) in all of your units. How vital is AI in growing units like these?

AI is essential significantly within the healthcare house as there may be plenty of distinction between one particular person to a different.

Every human being is completely different. Health points are additionally very personalised and also you see variations in each particular person.

In the traditional situations itself, even the bodily look of say, the within of the mouth of 1 particular person is completely different from one other particular person.

With the assistance of AI, we are able to predict the person variations extra precisely.

Do you take into account what you might be doing as a part of your duty in the direction of society?

Of course. Social duty might be addressed in several methods by completely different individuals. This is the best way individuals working science and know-how can impart their duty to society.

What we’re doing isn’t even 10% of what’s wanted. We have solely launched the know-how; it must be part of the healthcare system and never current in an remoted method right here and there.

And it can’t be completed by the efforts of 1 or two people; it must be a nationwide motion and a part of all the system.

Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com