Join us on October 28 from 2-3pm as Dr. Bruce J. Tromberg joins The Grainger College of Engineering for the Dean's Distinguished Lecture.
About Dr. Tromberg
Dr. Tromberg is the Director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at the National Institutes of Health and leads NIBIB’s $500M Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics innovation initiative for increasing SARS-COV-2 testing capacity and performance. Prior to joining NIH in January 2019, he was a professor of Biomedical Engineering and Surgery at the University of California, Irvine where he served as director of the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic and the Laser Microbeam and Medical Program, an NIH National Biomedical Technology Center. Dr. Tromberg specializes in the development of optics and photonics technologies for biomedical imaging and therapy. He has co-authored more than 450 publications and holds 21 patents in new technology development as well as bench-to-bedside clinical translation, validation, and commercialization of biomedical devices.
Bioengineering for COVID-19: Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) at Unprecedented Speed and Scale
The NIH Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) initiative was launched on April 29, 2020, just 5 days after a Congressional directive to expand the number and type of SARS-CoV2 diagnostic technologies. Four NIH RADx programs now support technology development and delivery. This talk introduces principles of the RADx Tech “innovation funnel” designed to evaluate, validate, and scale up promising technologies for laboratory, point of care, and home settings. More than 700 applications were submitted to the funnel and reviewed on a rolling basis over a ~3-month period. As of early October, 46 projects were selected for phase 1 funding to validate and de-risk technologies; 22 projects received phase 2 contracts totaling ~$480M to support manufacturing expansion and clinical studies. Current phase 2 platforms are projected to add >2.5M tests/day by December 2020. RADx has accelerated SARS-CoV2 test development by compressing the typical multi-year tech commercialization process into 5-6 months. As technologies in the pipeline continue to be developed, RADx, combined with multiple public and private sector expansion efforts, is anticipated to contribute to the production of >6M tests/day in the U.S. by the end of 2020.
