OFFICIAL ORGANIZATION NAME:

KAMPALA LABS, LLC

MISSION STATEMENT:

Kampala Labs democratizes access to microfluidics and genomic technologies to improve health outcomes in the developing world. It was established to operate research and laboratory facilities and services to improve access to cost-effective diagnostic technologies and care for disadvantaged people in Africa and around the world.

BACKGROUND:

The need for viral load tests to routinely monitor HIV patients for antiretroviral drug (ARV) compliance has exploded with the recent increase HIV treatment worldwide. In spite of outbursts of drug-resistant HIV strains, viral load tests remain an impractical indulgence in the Third World, costing as much as the yearly dosage of ARV drugs. Consequently, widespread failure of the HIV drugs in our possession looms large – a predicament that would demand more expensive (second- & third-line) ARVs or even restore the pre-ARV carnage of HIV/AIDS. This represents an unparalleled health challenge and a global threat to public health.

The idea for Kampala Labs was was born in May 2008 during a conversation between Dr. Frederick Balagadde and Dr. Stephen Quake, who chairs the bioengineering department at Stanford University, at a Keystone Symposium in Kampala (“Translating New Technologies to Improve Public Health in Africa within Clinical or Research Settings”). Microfluidics – the miniaturization of hundreds of low-cost viral load tests onto a single, iPhone-sized cartridge, is the key to widespread availability of affordable viral load tests in resource-limited settings.

Dr. Balagadde's TED Talk

ABOUT THE FOUNDER:

Dr. Frederick Balagadde is a research scientist in the Engineering Technologies Division at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He earned his Masters and Ph.D. in applied physics in 2007 from the California Institute of Technology. As a graduate student at Caltech and Stanford University, Frederick invented the micro-chemostat: a first-of-its-kind microfabricated fluidic chip that mimics a biological cell culture environment in a highly complex web of tiny pumps and human hair-sized water hoses, all controlled by a multitasking computer.

Dr. Balagadde’s pioneering research has attracted significant interest in the scientific community, including a publication in Science Magazine, several invited talks at prestigious conferences internationally, and was even featured on National Public Radio. He was selected in 2009 as a TED Senior Fellow.