WPI researcher receives $2.4M grant for infection detection app
Photo | Grant Welker
Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester
The National Institutes of Health awarded Worcester Polytechnic Institute researcher Emmanuel Agu $2.4 million to develop a smartphone app to detect infections in open wounds.
The app will use heat imaging, photographs, and computer algorithms on phones with thermal capabilities and will be administered by home care workers and visiting nurses, according to a Tuesday press release from WPI. The Deep Infected Wound Detector will help providers determine whether patients with diabetic ulcers, pressure sores, incisions, trauma-related injuries, and other wounds need specialized care.
Agu said the app has the capability to prevent unnecessary medical referrals and delays in care which can lead to more severe infection and amputation.
“The cost of failing to rapidly diagnose and treat an infected wound is huge,” Agu said in the press release.
The lead research team, composed of professors from WPI and UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester, will train deep-learning computer models by using thermal images and 1,500 photographs of wounds.
The same team in 2018 received a $1.6-million grant from the NIH for a wound detection app that did not have the thermal detection component.
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