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Imbuing Science with Compassion

Posted on Wednesday, January 22, 2025

By Iris Martinez

Topic: Environment and social responsibility

The 2024 Passion in Science Awards® hosted by New England Biolabs highlighted individuals within the scientific community across four categories. Twelve individuals won awards, receiving a celebration on Oct. 9 and 10 and a $1,000 donation to the charity of their choice.

This celebration included an awards ceremony and a poster presentation. In this blog, we highlight the work from the two recipients of the Humanitarian Duty Award™, one of which presented his work during the ceremony.

 


 

Adewunmi Akingbola, M.D., M.Phil.

Community Hepatitis B Shield Project

Adewunmi Akingbola is the co-founder and lead of HealthDrive Nigeria, a youth-led disease advocacy initiative that aims to increase the awareness and prevention of hepatitis B and C in underserved parts of Nigeria. Akingbola’s campaign against viral hepatitis recognizes the importance of testing and harm reduction alongside awareness.

Adewunmi Akingbola, sitting on blue sofa and smiling 

Adewunmi Akingbola at the New England Biolabs Lyophilization Sciences manufacturing facility. Photo courtesy of Aurelien Langlais.

 

HealthDrive Nigeria utilizes a “B-Safe Model” which establishes screening in various communities — enabling regular testing and education. Through collaborations with local healthcare facilities, they have made vaccines more accessible, launching campaigns to offer subsidized hepatitis vaccines. Additionally, they target unsafe practices such as unsterilized barbershop equipment to reduce the overall risk of transmission. To date, this initiative has already screened over 15 thousand people and vaccinated over 10 thousand in southwestern Nigeria.

 


 

Dylan Pillai, M.D., Ph.D.

Advancing Malaria Diagnostics for Pregnant Women

Dylan Pillai’s LAMPREG project was an international collaboration between Canadian and Ethiopian institutes to introduce Loop-mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) malaria testing during pregnancy. This method can detect lower levels of malaria, enabling the detection of both symptomatic and asymptomatic infections, and can be used in low-resource environments because it utilizes a constant temperature.

 

Dylan Pillai presenting the LAMPREG project at the Passion in Science Awards ceremony.

 

The project enrolled over 2,000 individuals, with one group receiving standard care throughout their pregnancies, and the other receiving additional LAMP testing. The LAMPREG project found that babies born in the LAMP testing group had improved weight gain in the first 28 days of life — an important indicator of likely childhood health.

Already, this project has improved local medical infrastructure in Ethiopia through training and the donation of crucial equipment such as portable ultrasound machines. Additionally, Pillai hopes to introduce LAMP as a standard diagnostic tool in areas with malaria endemics using their findings.

Adewunmi Akingbola and Dylan Pillai showcase the ways science can be used to improve lives, creating a healthier world for all. For a full list of 2024 Passion in Science Awards recipients, refer to our Passion in Science Awards page.


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