Prestigious research fund awarded to an international collaborative team with researchers from the University of Dhaka, University College Dublin, and Imperial College London for stillbirth prevention
May 2023
Despite recent advances in maternal and prenatal healthcare, progress toward reducing the number of stillbirths is significantly lagging. This can easily be understood from the occurrence of more than two million stillbirths each year globally, leading to unacceptable tragedies for millions of families. Researchers have shown that more than 50 percent of stillbirths are associated with reductions in the movements of babies in the wombs (fetal movements). However, currently, there is no way to monitor fetal movements at home.
A team of engineers and clinicians, including researchers from the Imperial College London, UK, the University College Dublin, Ireland, and the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, has been awarded a contract as part of Wellcome Leap’s In Utero program to determine how a wearable fetal movement monitor can be used to measure a baby’s health in the womb facilitating the identification of the babies who are at risk of stillbirth. Wellcome Leap is a non-profit organization founded by the Wellcome Trust to accelerate and increase the number of breakthroughs in human health globally. The In Utero program aims to create the scalable capacity to measure, model, and predict gestational development with a primary goal to reduce stillbirth rates by half.
To conduct the collaborative work for this project, a research agreement has recently been signed between University College Dublin, Imperial College London, and the Department of Robotics and Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Dhaka (RMEDU). Abhishek Kumar Ghosh, Assistant Professor at RMEDU, will be leading the research team at the University of Dhaka. Abhishek’s PhD research at Imperial College London has led to the development of the FM monitor that will work as the fundamental technology in this project. Abhishek is thrilled about this achievement and said: ‘’This is a wonderful opportunity for me to translate my doctoral research into a real-world healthcare technology product and contribute to preventing stillbirth. I am extremely optimistic about the prospect of our wearable fetal movement monitor and the funding from Wellcome Leap will enable us to refine the device for large-scale clinical deployment in near future.”
Chairperson of the Department of Robotics and Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Dhaka, Dr. Sejuti Rahman said: “This is undoubtedly a great opportunity for our department to engage with some of the world’s leading educational and research institutions. This will provide opportunities to our researchers and students to participate in state-of-the-art research works, which will help to boost our ongoing effort of expanding high-quality research works at our department.”
For further information, please contact Abhishek Kumar Ghosh at abhishek.rme@du.ac.bd.