Survival – life lusts for it. Its strategies and decisions, from birth till death, are guided by survival. It is an instinct that’s hard wired into every living being on this planet. Thus, it is the common denominator between us and the coronavirus. Both of us are united by the need to survive, thrive and spread. In this skirmish of biological dominance, human perseverance has been challenged and has contested its viral counterpart with fervour. At the forefront of the battle strategy are researchers like Dr. Wala Saadeh who are keen on helping covid-19 patients deal with this terrible disease without making regular visits to the hospital environment, where they risk spreading the virus to others.

We are delighted to announce that Dr. Wala Saadeh has won a grant of USD 93,000 for her project to remotely monitor vitals of covid-19 patients using wearable devices, thereby decreasing their exposure to a hospital environment, and helping reduce financial toils of regular hospital visits. This is poised to be the world’s first complete vitals monitoring system-on-chip solution. Dr. Wala sees to develop a device that can measure and track a variety of vitals such as body temperature, heart rate and its variations, respiratory rate, blood oxygen level and blood pressure. This device will also be available to patients presenting symptoms of the common flu, asthma and non-covid-19 related diseases like SARS, H1N1, etc.

Her grant comes as a result of her winning proposal for the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) Engage Transform Fund. Her project was selected among the top 30 from around 5000 applications, worldwide. We offer our heartiest congratulations to Dr. Wala Saadeh and wish her success in fulfilling her wonderful project.