Rice students make commitment to Clinton Global Initiative

Rice students make commitment to Clinton Global Initiative

BY B.J. ALMOND
Rice News staff

Some Rice students’ efforts to improve medical care in parts of Africa took center stage — literally — at last weekend’s meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) in New Orleans.

“I think we should all be very grateful to these fine people from Rice for what they’re doing,” former President Bill Clinton told an audience of nearly 700 students representing 40 states and 15 other countries. He was referring to Rice undergraduate students Jeanie Ling and Jenna Hook, Bioengineering Department Chair Rebecca Richards-Kortum and President David Leebron, who all joined Clinton onstage as he announced the Rice commitment to advance global health technologies in education.

COURTESY PHOTO

From left, President David Leebron, Professor Rebecca Richards-Kortum, and Rice undergraduate students Jenna Hook and Jeanie Ling join former President Bill Clinton onstage at the Clinton Global Initiative University.

“Jenna and Jeanie will build medical backpacks for rural doctors in sub-Saharan Africa,” Clinton said. “This is really important because so many people who are willing to go and help people don’t have the materials to do the job.”

The students’ lab-in-a-backpack consists of diagnostic tools, such as a centrifuge and a microscope, and rechargeable batteries that will allow health-care workers to use the medical equipment in remote areas of Africa where electricity is not available.  The hiking backpack, designed as a project for the BIOE 260 and 451 courses taught by Richards-Kortum and bioengineering lecturer Maria Oden, makes it easier to transport the instruments and other medical equipment, including a first-aid kit and a safety container for used needles.

Ling and Hook have committed to customize the backpacks for three physicians treating kids in Tanzania, Botswana and Malawi. “We made a list of what’s needed for each location,” said Ling, who surveyed the physicians working there. In Tanzania, for example, anemia is very common, so the physician needs a machine to test red blood cells, Ling said. In Botswana, the physicians see a lot of obesity, so they need a glucose test to monitor for diabetes. Because of the prevalence of AIDS in Africa, all backpacks will include HIV tests.

Hook has also made a commitment to develop a backpack for a Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative clinic in Lesotho, where she will accompany physicians this summer to evaluate the efficacy of the diagnostic tools. Batteries for the backpack are charged at towns that have electricity before the physicians visit rural communities in remote villages.

“In Lesotho, where you’re going to check the viability of this backpack, one-third of the people live in areas that can only be reached on foot or with animals that will not fall off very steep mountain pathways,” Clinton said. “The potential of this to save lives is really quite staggering.”

Clinton said he began his global initiative three years ago to bring together people from all over the world who are trying to do good as private citizens and have them work with political and business leaders and philanthropists to deal with such global problems as the health-care crisis. Everyone at the meeting had to promise to do something about a problem.

“In three years, we’ve had over a thousand commitments affecting 100 countries that have the potential to improve the lives of more than 180 million people, and they’ve been worth tens of billions of dollars,” Clinton said.

Jenna Hook displays the lab-in-a-backback. JEFF FITLOW

CGI decided to host a university-based meeting because participants were impressed by the energy generated by younger people, Clinton said. “College campuses are hotbeds of citizen service in hundreds of ways,” he said.

The Rice students were invited to share their commitment as a follow-up to the announcement of Rice 360