The participants of the seminar on biohacking in healthcare in Yaoundé. © Goethe Institute / D. Niwalo
Thomas Hervé Mboa Nkoudou (University of Laval) and Jérôme Avom (Higher institute of medical technology, Cameroon) explain in Makery (French | English) how open science will make access to healthcare easier in developing countries, following their seminar on“Biohacking in the medical field: perspectives for developing countries” which was held in Yaoundé, Cameroon in May 2017. The seminar was co-organised by open science in Haiti and in Africa (Apsoha) and the Yaoundé Higher institute of medical technology (ISTM) with funding from the Goethe Institute and support from the international network Open Science Hardware (GOSH). GOSHers participating included:
- André Maia Chagas from Open Neuroscience on DIY medical devices.
- Marc Dusseiller on bioelectronics, haemocytometrics and microscopy
- Xiamyra Daal from the Waag Society on the Biohack Academy
- Tobias Wenzel on DocuBricks and an open source, parametric gel electrophoresis system.
- Pierre Padilla and Don Andrès from the Syntechbio network in Latin America who presented setting up a lab for low cost.
In addition:
- Luc Jonveaux explained how to build an ultrasound medical imaging apparatus for less than $500.
- Tabi Ebanda showed the plans of the device he designed to keep track of sick people’s liver cells.
The GOSH community assisted with provision of materials for workshops in microscopy, Arduino, Raspberry (RPi3), soldering and bio-printing and we’re grateful for the on-going support of the Alfred P Sloan Foundation that enabled the GOSH maker kits to be compiled.
We’re also excited to see what Thomas, Jérôme and colleagues do next as they have exciting plans!
Following the success of this first seminar, we felt the need to reproduce this experience in several African countries. The idea then emerged to organize a series of similar workshops grouped under the name Afrobiohacking Tour. To be continued!
Source: L’Afrique à l’assaut du biohacking pour la santé : Makery