Apr 13, 2020
Dr. John Knight helped oversee a global competition to produce a more affordable dialysis system. He discusses
Dr. John Knight is a
Professorial Fellow of the Renal and Metabolic Division and
Professor of Medicine at UNSW Sydney and is Adjunct Professor of
Pediatrics and Child health at their Children's Hospital.
He was in private practice for several years focusing on pediatric
chronic kidney disease. He recently joined a non-profit medical
research group called The George Institute for Global
Health in
Sydney.
He describes their focus on
questions about kidney treatment around the world including
dialysis complications and
chronic kidney disease: dialysis is highly successful but
highly expensive. In most western countries, the community picks up
the cost through taxes.
The rest of the world can't afford that and many die from their
kidney disease instead of receiving dialysis. Around 10 million
world-wide need dialysis but only about 2.6 million are able to get
it.
Knight describes the global
competition called the Affordable Dialysis Prize, which The George
Institute organized with the following terms: inventors should
invent a low cost dialysis that uses solar power, is portable, can
purify water from any source, and costs less than $1000 to
manufacture.
Dr. Knight tells listeners about the winner, about the group called
Ellen Medical Devices Party, Ltd., he created to manufacture it,
and describes the next phase of making it available worldwide to
address dialysis complications and
chronic kidney disease.
For more, see https://www.ellenmedical.com/, where viewers can sign up for a newsletter.