The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), with the support of its partners, is offering up to $1,000,000 in cash prizes for innovative diagnostic technologies to help improve maternal health around the world. Pregnancy and childbirth complications are a major global health problem, resulting in the deaths of more than 800 women and 7,000 newborns each day. Contributing to the high rates of maternal morbidity and mortality in low-resource settings is a lack of low-cost diagnostics that operate at the point-of-care and are capable of detecting and differentiating common conditions associated with pregnancy.

The NIH Technology Accelerator Challenge for Maternal Health (NTAC: Maternal Health) seeks to spur and reward the development of prototypes for low-cost, point-of-care molecular, cellular, and/or metabolic sensing and diagnostic technologies to guide rapid clinical decision-making, improve patient outcomes, and ultimately prevent maternal morbidity and mortality.

To win NTAC: Maternal Health, participants must: (1) Submit their design for a point-of-care diagnostic test or platform technology with initial feasibility data or references addressing at least two of the four priority conditions listed below affecting maternal health during antenatal and intrapartum periods; and (2) Submit a robust description of the proposed path for translation and further development of the diagnostic technology for use in global health settings. Additionally, diagnostics should be fully integrated digital health platforms. The four priority conditions and specific examples are as follows:

• Infection: viral, bacterial, or parasitic infections; sepsis; post-procedural infections
• Hypertensive disease: pre-eclampsia; eclampsia
• Hemorrhage: acute anemia; iron deficiency anemia; coagulopathy
• Placental issues: angiogenic or other markers of placental disruption

Key Dates:

April 1, 2022: Deadline for competition registration
April 22, 2022: Submission deadline