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NIH has awarded seven contracts to companies and academic institutions to develop digital health solutions that help address the COVID-19 pandemic.

NIH announced $129.3 million in scale-up and manufacturing support for a new set of COVID-19 testing technologies as part of RADx. These tests add to initial awards made to seven companies on July 31, 2020.

The winners of National Institutes of Health’s 9th annual Design by Biomedical Undergraduate Teams (DEBUT) challenge developed simple and low-cost diagnostics and treatments for conditions such as tuberculosis, cervical cancer, birth defects, and onchocerciasis (river blindness).

NIH is investing $248.7 million in new technologies to address challenges associated with COVID-19 testing (which detects SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus). NIH’s RADx initiative has awarded contracts to seven biomedical diagnostic companies to support a range of new lab-based and point-of-care tests.

In a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine, scientific leaders from the National Institutes of Health set forth a framework to increase significantly the number, quality and type of daily tests for detecting SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and help reduce inequities for underserved populations that have been disproportionally affected by the disease.

To help the world respond to COVID-19, 3M and researchers at MIT are testing a new rapid test that detects the virus. Accelerated research is underway to learn if a simple-to-use, diagnostic device can produce highly accurate results within minutes and is feasible to mass manufacture.

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Using DNA origami as a virus-like scaffold, researchers designed an HIV-like particle that provokes a strong response from human immune cells grown in the lab. They are now testing this approach as a potential vaccine candidate in live animals, and adapting it to SARS-CoV-2, as well as other pathogens.

To counter drug resistance, scientists must engineer new drugs to kill mutated cancer cells or pathogens. Now, Penn State engineers have developed a new approach for predicting which mutation has expanded the most in a population and should be targeted to design the most effective new drug.

NIH has announced a new initiative aimed at speeding innovation, development and commercialization of COVID-19 testing technologies, a pivotal component needed to return to normal during this unprecedented global pandemic.

Researchers at the University of Memphis-based Center of Excellence for Mobile Sensor Data-to-Knowledge (MD2K) have introduced a new mobile app that may support physical distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. MD2K is supported by NIH with a grant administered by the NIBIB.