From Basement to Bench to Bedside Innovations supported by Georgia CTSA's Innovation Catalyst program

CellScope and AnemoCheck in action

Wilbur Lam, MD, PhD, links medical needs and engineering technology to create a “basement to bench to bedside” approach to innovation. He and the Lam Lab provide patients with direct to bedside treatments by allowing patients the capability to perform diagnostic tests at home. CellScope™, also known as the Remotoscope, uses a simple attachment to a smartphone to convert it into a digital otoscope to diagnose ear infections by a remote physician. AnemoCheck™ allows patients to screen for anemia in less than half a drop of blood in just a few minutes from the convenience of their home. 

Lam is an associate professor in the Division of Hematology/Oncology, Department of Pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory. He attributes his innovation and success in linking medicine and engineering technology to the level of collaboration and expertise found between Emory, Georgia Tech, and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

View this short video from the Georgia Research Alliance to learn more.

Both inventions were supported by Georgia Clinical & Translational Science Alliance’s (Georgia CTSA) Innovation Catalyst program. Innovation Catalyst offers funding for start-up research projects, better access to analytical tools, and education and training to clinical and translational investigators. Georgia CTSA provides the infrastructure and programmatic foundation to rapidly identify and invest in promising technologies and enhance collaborative opportunities among translational investigators and industry partners. A goal of Georgia CTSA is to catalyze development, validation, and commercialization of translational technologies.

The Georgia CTSA is an inter-institutional magnet that concentrates basic, translational, and clinical research investigators, community clinicians, professional societies, and industry collaborators in dynamic clinical and translational research projects. Emory engaged three of its close academic partners – Morehouse School of Medicine, Georgia Tech, and UGA – to form the Georgia CTSA. This partnership, a strategic multi-institutional alliance, offers compelling, unique, and synergistic advantages to research and patients statewide.

Georgia CTSA is one of nearly 60 in a national consortium striving to improve the way biomedical research is conducted across the country. The consortium, funded through the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) and the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical and Translational Science Awards, shares a common vision to translate laboratory discoveries into treatments for patients, engage communities in clinical research efforts, and train the next generation of clinical investigators.