ECE Assistant Professor Umer Hassan has received a collaborative R01 grant from NIH/NIAID on the project "Urine Colorimetry for Tuberculosis Pharmacokinetics Evaluation in Children and Adults". Dr. Hassan is a Co-Investigator in the grant. Lead institution is University of Virginia led by Scott Heysell (PI); other collaborating institutions include Haydom Global Health Research Centre in Tanzania, Rutgers Schools of Pharmacy (Leonid Kagan), Engineering (Umer Hassan) and Medicine (Yingda Xie). This is a 5 year project (12/2023 – 10/2028) with a full budget totaling $3.7 Million (to be disbursed yearly). Dr. Hassan’s work will commence starting Year 3 till end of project (Y3-5) with a funding allocation of $214,638.
Tuberculosis (TB) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide with most deaths occurring in individuals infected with highly treatable, drug sensitive stains. Individual pharmacokinetic variability is an important driver of TB treatment failure particularly among undernourished populations, and sub-target serum drug concentrations are associated with delayed response to treatment, death, and acquired bacterial drug resistance. Project proposed a randomized and controlled study of the PEE-TB (Point-of-care Evaluation of Exposure to TB drugs) based dose adjustment intervention for rifampin to test the efficacy of the platform in increasing rifampin serum concentrations to target, and the overall safety of the dose personalization strategy in children and adults. Clinical studies will be carried out in Tanzania and USA. Dr. Hassan’s role in the project will be the development of a point-of-care sensor for Rifampin measurement from urine samples automatically. Sensor will be validated in clinical studies in the labs and the field.
Congratulations Umer !