In 2014, Umut Gurkan, associate professor at the Case School of Engineering, received a Clinical & Translational Science Collaborative (CTSC) Annual Pilot to develop HemeChip, an accurate, low-cost, point-of-care diagnostic, specialized for low-income countries, to diagnose sickle cell disease.

Gurkan has gone on to receive multiple publications, grants, and patents based on blood the assay technology. The pilot funding was the critical catalyst to a retrospective case studies to evaluate the translational research process underway by a group of evaluation researchers at Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) hubs.

Working with Gurkan, CTSC members involved in the study are:

• Kelli Qua;
• Shannon Swiatkowski; and
• Clara Pelfrey.

The team is investigating the successful translation of the HemeChip using a protocol for retrospective translational science case studies of health interventions developed by the CTSA evaluation researchers.

Their findings were recently published in the Journal of Clinical and Translational Science: “A Retrospective Case Study of Successful Translational Research: Gazelle Hb Variant Point-of-Care Diagnostic Device for Sickle Cell Disease.”

This retrospective case study publication was the first-of-its-kind in the journal. Earlier this year, Pelfrey and the CTSA evaluation researchers petitioned JCTS to include retrospective case studies as a manuscript category. The objective of these studies is to deepen knowledge of the transitional process and identify contributors to successful translation.

Read their paper.