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SHAKER LIFE | WINTER 2017 45 One Village at a Time So far, Grimberg and his team have tested about 1,000 samples from Papua New Guinea, Peru, Kenya, and the U.S., all with promising results. Last September, the device also received the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Patents for Humanity Award, a prestigious award that carries with it a fast-track patent application. Grimberg hopes the MOD device may be manufactured for wider distribution and use in the near future. Recently, Grimberg expanded his research to study Zika virus, as the same mosquitoes carry both Zika and malaria. He has permits to bring Zika samples into the U.S. (he stores them in a locked fridge in his lab) and he cultures the virus, studying its genetics. He’s also working on a vaccine. “We’re just at the beginning of the research so it’s difficult to say if the current strains we’re seeing in this outbreak have mutated to become more virulent or if the virus has just found a more receptive environment,” he explains. “The reason it has spread so rapidly is that we live in an ever more interconnected world and the mosquitoes that transmit this and other disease are everywhere.” Ultimately, Grimberg would love a world without malaria, but that’s an ending to his story that’s a bit too pat. For now, most reductions in cases will result from one-village-at-a-time efforts. “The most realistic goal is to create pockets of localized elimination,” he says. “If you can get rid of malaria in certain areas, then you can keep it out.”


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