Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Sarah Kieweg, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Kansas University received a $1.3 million grant to expand her research into developing a gel that can help protect women from HIV.
HIV prevention has a new advocate at the University. Sarah Kieweg, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, received a $1.3 million grant from the National Institute of Health to continue developing a preventative gel for the virus.
“This microbicidal gel needs to protect all the vaginal surfaces. It needs to be spreading where it needs to go and keeping the drug where it needs to be, so the basics of the research involve examining the fluid mechanics of how that gel will spread around,” Kieweg said in an Oct. 7 news release.
The team of researchers, which also includes Carl Weiner, chair of obstetrics and gynecology at KU Medical Center and Kyle Camarda, associate professor of chemical and petroleum engineering, are developing an instrument that predicts how the gel moves, to make sure the gel is as effective as possible against HIV and other STDs.
Weiner is testing the instrument and used it in normal exams with a few dozen women so far. He said Keiweg and her team are at the halfway point with developing this tool.
The goal for the team’s instrument is to perfect the gel’s physical and chemical barrier for women against HIV and other STDs. If completed, the instrument will help create other drugs for women’s sexual health.
“It’s like designing a better hammer,” Weiner said. “For building better houses and better furniture.”
Camarda’s group focuses on the design of polymeric liquids for the gel. He and his team are focused more on the structure of the product, avoiding extensive experiments that will not be effective.
The school of engineering and its researchers are not only excited about the opportunity to advance health care for their own research, but for the bigger picture as well.
“I think a focus on women’s health, and particularly women’s health in poorer nations, is an excellent idea for an academic project,” Camarda said. “We can have an impact on society in ways that corporations or other entities may not be able to implement. And I very much enjoy seeing practical results of the computational research that goes on in my lab.”
— Edited by C.J. Matson
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