Emory launches new program to improve health equity by accelerating disease diagnostic research

December 18, 2023 | Saporta Report

Striving to ensure advanced medical technologies are reaching the populations who need them most,  Emory’s Center for the Advancement of Diagnostics for a Just Society  (ADJUST) is launching this year as part of NIH’s RADx program.

The last several years have demonstrated that new technologies are steadily allowing for the diffusion of disease diagnosis and monitoring out of clinical environments and into communities, businesses, schools, and homes. These types of point-of-care technologies offer numerous benefits, but they also introduce a whole new set of issues – not only technological and clinical, but also logistical, regulatory, commercial, social, and ethical. Often times, the patients who need these new technologies the most have the least access.

Emory’s new center is the first-of-its-kind designed to address these issues. Utilizing a two-pronged approach to accelerate diagnostic development while ensuring health equity and justice, the ADJUST Center will serve as both a thinktank focusing on the advancement of future disease diagnosis through research and advocacy, as well as a technology foundry to accelerate diagnostic development.

“Given our vast experience, expertise, and ecosystem in diagnostics, we are well poised to be the only center in the nation dedicated to advancing the entire field of diagnostics forward in this modern era of medicine,” says Wilbur Lam, MD, PhD, pediatric hematologist and oncologist at  Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta,   and professor of pediatrics and biomedical engineering at Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology. “As we help develop and translate new diagnostic technologies, our Center will also concurrently address the issues of accessibility, usability, and affordability to ensure these state-of-art tests will serve the populations who need them the most.”

The ADJUST Center is borne out of the NIH-funded point-of-care technologies center, the  ACME POCT , which is one of six sites in the U.S. selected by NIH as part of the NIH Point-of-Care Technologies Research Network. ACME POCT played a pivotal role during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic as the national test verification center to rapidly evaluate COVID-19 tests and help make them widely available.

The ADJUST Center will seek to build off the expertise compiled during the COVID-19 pandemic and apply the lessons learned and proven tactics to ensure equitable access to advanced technology for everyone. Projects already underway include assessing the potential adverse outcomes of consumer health wearable technologies and examining the availability of point-of-care HPV diagnostics.   

Emory’s Senior Vice President for Research Deborah Bruner, PhD, says, “The ADJUST Center is an important new initiative that builds upon Emory’s strengths and impacts so many of our institutional goals. It is highly innovative, it is entrepreneurial, it is collaborative, and it is focused on health equity – it encompasses a wide variety of things that make us Emory.  I’m extremely excited to see what the center can achieve for our community and the world.”

Source: https://saportareport.com/emory-launches-new-program-to-improve-health-equity-by-accelerating-disease-diagnostic-research/thought-leadership/higher-education/emory-university/

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April 17, 2026 - Nutrivert Inc., a developer of non-antibiotic replacements for antibiotic growth promoters in livestock, today announced it has completed the first close, raising $2.375 million, of its Series A-2 funding round of $6 million. The round was led by global animal health investor Arrow Ventures with participation from other investors. The funding will be used to further develop Nutrivert’s manufacturing, human food safety and target animal safety and efficacy packages for the company’s lead product Nutrivert LDPP. Nutrivert LDPP is a proprietary, novel, orally available, lipidated synthetic enantiomeric desmuramyl analog of muramyl dipeptide, the smallest conserved immunoactive component of bacterial peptidoglycan. LDPP has no antibacterial effect but has consistently promoted growth and improved feed efficiency in pig studies. LDPP binds to the mammalian NOD2 receptor and is the only NOD2 ligand reported to inhibit the inflammatory signal NF-κB. In pilot studies, LDPP rescued 70kg pigs from an otherwise lethal dose of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) and abrogated influenza disease symptoms in piglets. The Company intends to develop LDPP for all major livestock species worldwide. Patents have been granted in most major markets. The global antibiotic growth promoter market is worth an estimated $5.8 billion. Approximately 73% of all antibiotics are fed to livestock. The market is believed to be the world’s largest drug market by volume, with ~100,000 tons of active pharmaceutical ingredient administered annually. FDA’s latest data, for 2024, show a 13% rise in U.S. livestock antibiotic use since 2017. The Food and Agriculture Organization reports that livestock antibiotics are mostly given to speed animal growth. Regulators and non-governmental organizations have called for reduction of antibiotic use in livestock, citing concerns that the global, intensive use of antibiotics, often at subtherapeutic doses, selects for antimicrobial resistance: bacteria that are “immune” to antibiotics and that therefore pose a threat to public health. Spillovers of antibiotic-resistant bacteria from livestock to humans have been documented. “Nutrivert LDPP has consistently improved feed efficiency in pigs without antibiotics,” said Bernhard Kaltenboeck, CSO. “We are excited to have the support of Arrow Ventures and our other investors in bringing a new tool that will help producers reduce production costs and reduce selection pressure for antimicrobial resistance.” About Nutrivert LDPP: LDPP is an investigational compound currently undergoing clinical evaluation. It has not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the European Medicines Agency (EMA), or any other global regulatory authority for any indication. The safety and efficacy of LDPP have not been established. Any mention of potential use is based on preliminary data and does not guarantee future regulatory clearance or commercial availability.
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