We are LIVE! Crowdfunding for Research on Zika Virus Transmission in Thailand. Support and Stay Involved

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Our crowdfunding campaign is now live. We are launching this campaign to help kickstart our research on Zika virus. This project was picked up the World Health Organization last year, who has been helping us developing skills for a successful crowdfunding campaign for science projects on tropical infectious diseases in low-to-middle income countries.

Infectious diseases are more important and visible than ever. There is still so much we don't know about infectious disease processes—take COVID comorbidities as an example.

Although Zika virus infection is no longer the biggest disease on our minds, but it is still a major threat in 87 countries around the world. It can transmit from pregnant mother to her fetus, causing all sorts of neurological problems upon birth. At this moment, there is no drugs or vaccines to prevent this transmission, and we are here to fix it.

Here’s what our project is looking to do. We are developing a model to study Zika mother-to-child transmission! We will use this model to understand how Zika can pass from infected pregnant mother to her unborn child, and figure out a way to block this process. We will use this model to screen for therapeutics, like antibodies, that can block this transmission.

Things get even cooler. We are using 3D mini-organs (organoids) to study Zika infection. We will generate a uterine mini-organ-on-a-chip to study the mechanisms of Zika infection and transmission through the placenta. This can bypass animal testing, and give us an even better setup to test therapeutics before going into clinical trials. That’s a win-win for everybody.

With the discovery from this project, we can form a base for developing a multi-organs system using different types of organoids. The system will even more closely mimic the biological processes in our body! We can use this technology as a part of drug development pipeline, disease modeling and even studies on genetic diseases.

The campaign is live from October 15th - November 30th. All of your donations will be used help use develop a platform to study Zika mother to child transmission, and form a base for us to apply for traditional research grants later on. Let’s help us complete this crowdfunding challenge.  

For more information please visit: http://www.experiment.com/noZika4Baby

Curious about crowdfunding for science?
Visit our previous posts

Thank you for your consideration

The Busy Mosquitoes


 

Location: National Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Thailand

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