Siemens employees as finalists for the 2017 European Inventor Award

The European Patent Office has announced Dutch product manager Jan van den Boogaart (57) and Austrian researcher Prof. Dr. Oliver Hayden (45) as finalists for the 2017 Inventor Award in the “Industry” category. The two Siemens Healthineers employees have invented an automated method for detecting the life-threatening disease malaria. On the basis of their own research, they jointly developed a method for the Siemens Healthineers Advia 2120i hematology systembased on a combination of parameters that define whether a patient has  malaria. With this method, the Advia 2120i hematology system can run malaria tests automatically as part of a full blood panel. The great advantage is the high throughput at lower cost than with other methods, such as microscopic examination.
Until now, the most reliable method has been a microscopic examination of the blood for plasmodia, which calls for experienced, trained personnel, as recognizing plasmodia under the microscope is not easy. The process is also very time-consuming. In recent years, malaria has also been diagnosed more and more with fast tests: a test strip that detects parasite-specific antigens. But if used improperly, that test is unreliable, and it’s also expensive. www.siemens.com/press/PR2017040278HCENwww.epo.org/news-issues/press.html