By Andrew Robinson

While progress toward developing a vaccine to prevent COVID-19 infection continues to dominate conversations about the pandemic, international and multigenerational teams of engineers have come together once again through the National Academy of Engineering’s COVID-19 Call for Engineering Action to find creative solutions to myriad pandemic-related problems. Their ideas aim to combat misinformation, help people most at risk, and prevent the spread of the virus.

“More than 800 individuals have responded to the call, including NAE Grand Challenges Scholars Program students and alumni, mid-career professionals associated with our Frontiers of Engineering program, and members of the National Academy of Engineering,” said John L. Anderson, president of the National Academy of Engineering, during the second pitch showcase of the Call for Engineering Action last week.

The Call for Engineering Action was launched to facilitate crowdsourcing and brainstorming of ideas that could help protect public health and the economy during the pandemic. The initiative has attracted individuals ranging from university-level students to seasoned engineers and other experts. As with the first showcase, held on June 26, this second showcase consisted of five teams pitching their concepts to an Expert Review Committee of NAE members who provided feedback and advice on how best to advance the ideas that were presented.

Enlisting AI, Wearable Devices, and Other Innovations

COVID-19-related misinformation, often spread on social media, has become an unforeseen danger during the pandemic. Political leaders, for example, have propagated unsubstantiated claims about how the virus is spread and what medications can be used to prevent or cure the disease. A University of Southern California-based team has created an online dashboard designed to identify and monitor unreliable, misleading, or malicious information about COVID-19 posted on social media platforms. The dashboard uses multiple analytical tools to detect and track misinformation while simultaneously educating the public using facts about COVID-19.

“This is a really timely and very urgent application of AI to address some of the most important challenges that we’re facing,” said Yan Liu, team lead and assistant professor of computer science at USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering.

Early detection of COVID-19 infection has proved to be invaluable in preventing long-term health effects and deaths. A team of professionals led by faculty at the University of Texas, San Antonio, came up with the idea to detect harmful neurological and neurovascular changes associated with COVID-19 infection in pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic individuals. A set of tools would include, among others, retina imaging on one’s cell phone and a smell test to determine any changes with that sense.

The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed the country’s health care infrastructure to the limit and in many places has exposed some glaring deficiencies. Before the pandemic, hospital overcrowding was already an issue. The strain of the current crisis as exacerbated this problem, impacting the efficiency and quality of patient care. An international team of students that was a finalist in the 2019 Global Grand Challenges Summit business competition presented their solution to hospital overcrowding with a new wearable and reusable monitoring device for high-risk individuals that can transmit real-time health data to their health care providers.

“The reusability aspect is something that we’re working hard on to help make the remote monitoring more sustainable,” said Emily Cho, team lead and engineering student at the University of Maryland.

Early symptom monitoring was also the focus of a Columbia University-based team that came up with a concept for a wearable monitoring device that measures stress and inflammatory responses to better assess the state of the virus and the patient’s immune system. The team argued that measuring vital signs was not enough when trying to catch serious cases of COVID-19 early on in the infection, and that only measuring inflammation via biomarkers would allow doctors to know the condition of the wearer’s immune system. The wearable patch would transmit this information to doctors via a cell phone application or online platform.

A persistent problem with reusable face masks has been the ability for the general public to adequately disinfect them. A team from the Georgia Institute of Technology came up with a concept that uses a low-voltage electrical charge that is focused by copper nanowires weaved into the fabric of the mask to neutralize any pathogens. This device would either run on battery power or even through the wearer’s movements. It would also simultaneously disinfect while being worn, eliminating the current need for UV or chemical sterilization by the user.

More Ideas to Come

The NAE will host more pitch showcases in the coming weeks and months, and many more concepts are developing in the NAE Call to Action incubator. In the meantime, these five teams can use the guidance they received from the Expert Review Committee to further their goals of bringing their COVID-19 solutions to the public.

Watch the event recording here.

If you have any questions about the NAE’s COVID-19 Call for Engineering Action, please email engcovid19@nae.edu.

General interest and proposal form