The Phone Oximeter, developed by UBC professors Mark Ansermino, Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and Guy Dumont, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, measures blood oxygen levels through a light sensor attached to a person’s fingertip.
Grand Challenges Canada, a federal funding program seeking new ideas for improving health in the developing world, is providing $1 million to LionsGate Technologies for the roll-out of the Phone Oximeter, matched by $1 million from a group of investors led by Vancouver-based Coleco Investments. LionsGate is a spin-off out of UBC, the Child and Family Research Institute and B.C. Children’s Hospital.
The funding will enable LionsGate to provide Phone Oximeters for a trial involving 80,000 women in India, Pakistan, Mozambique and Nigeria to assess its usefulness in diagnosing high blood pressure during pregnancy or pre-eclampsia, the second-leading cause of maternal death worldwide, killing 76,000 women a year. For more information, click here.
