The International Design Development Summit (IDDS), a unique set-up drawing on the experiences of development practitioners from different countries and backgrounds, led to a path-breaking development, which promises to take research on HIV prevention a step further.

A team of five students and an experienced medical doctor devised a method for disinfecting breast milk involving modification of an existing nipple shield to prevent the transmission of the HIV virus from mother to child during breastfeeding.

Stephen Gerrard, a chemical engineer from Cambridge University and an EWB-UK volunteer, Tombo Banda, a mechanical engineer from Imperial college, Geoff Galgon from California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Ryan Hubbard a systems engineer from Olin College, Elizabeth Kneen, a mechanical engineer from Olin College and David Sokal, an experienced physician and public health specialist from Family Health International (FHI), participated in a month-long workshop (IDDS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) this August.

"IDDS brought together 60 participants from 22 countries comprising both engineers and field workers, amateurs and professionals, and gave us an opportunity to work together in teams on different research projects," says Gerrard, who will now be starting his Masters in Chemical Engineering at Cambridge University. Besides Gerrard, four other EWB-UK volunteers also participated in the summit.

IDDS is not strictly an academic conference, nor is it a technology training workshop. "Unlike most academic conferences, its emphasis is on the development of prototypes, not papers and proceedings," according to course founder Amy Smith. It draws inspiration from several current models of innovation, design, community empowerment and co-creation.

The principle of co-creation is what sets IDDS apart. Gerrard explains, "The concept of co-creation implies that it is better to provide communities with the skills and tools to become innovators and develop new technologies themselves than to simply provide the technologies externally. IDDS, thus, encouraged and saw the participation of many people of different occupations from developing countries. For instance, masons from Guinea or welders from Honduras also participated in the summit as their contribution is significant."

Gerrard and his team came together because of their common interest in HIV prevention. The project also strongly benefited from the viewpoints and experiences of other participants from developing nations with a non-scientific background. Although, prevention of the transmission of the HIV virus from mother to child during breast-feeding is currently being researched upon by some research groups, it is still a very new subject area.

"For instance, a research group at Berkley, California has been working on heat treatment to deactivate the virus, which suggests extraction and heating of the mother's milk before feeding it to the baby," explains Gerrard.

Taking on from current research in the field, the team of six, was given the assignment of devising a practical design for heating the milk for deactivating the virus.

"We quickly established the concern that this may be too lengthy for many women in developing countries so they might not have the time for it," says Gerrard.

The group looked at other research besides heat treatment that was being carried out in the world, particularly in Israel, England, Boston, Philadelphia and California. They came across a couple of research groups working on compounds that could be used to deactivate the HIV virus in breast milk.

"Research has shown that copper and copper compounds can deactivate the HIV virus," says Gerrard , "But another approach, carried out by researchers at Drexel University in Philadelphia seemed to be more promising and further along. The research group at the Drexel lab has focused on a compound called Sodium Dodecyl Sulphate (SDS), which can kill the HIV virus pretty quickly and in fairly non-toxic concentrations," he adds.

Drexel University collaborated with the IDDS team to take the research further. "They identified the compound and have been studying it for use in a filter in a baby bottle, but we came up with a way to make its use much more practical," says Gerrard. " Because our approach might have other uses than HIV prevention, such as giving medicines to babies, we submitted a provisional patent to the US Patent Office before the end of the IDDS meeting," he adds.

Gerrard and his team-mates came up with a unique approach by slightly modifying an existing nipple shield , so that it could be used to add SDS to breast milk.

"We found that if we added a non-woven material like cotton-wool or felt containing SDS to the nipple shield and had the baby feeding on that, the HIV virus could be de-activated without having to go through the heat treatment," says Gerrard.

However, although a definite break-through, more research needs to be done to establish that the majority of HIV virus is de-activated in the time during which the milk passes through the cotton-wool. "Researchers at Drexel are currently testing our samples to establish this," says Gerrard.

The path ahead for this two month old project depends on these initial results. "If results are encouraging, we will think of the next step, or else we will have to go back to re-thinking the entire implementation mechanism," he adds.

The project, as it exists now, aims to use this modification of the nipple shield since it is cost effective and simple in use. "All the mother needs to do is to replace the cotton-wool on a daily basis," says Gerrard.

Yet another aspect of the project that the team worked on was the social implication of the Nipple shield.

"Using the nipple shield could be stigmatizing as it will immediately identify the HIV infected mother," says Gerrard. "So we are considering marketing it as a way to deliver medicines or micronutrient supplements to aid breast feeding. This broadens the spectrum as medicinal supplements could be for other things as well; for example, they can also be used for iron or iodine deficiency," he adds.

The project has the potential to turn into a full-fledged PhD project for a student at Drexel University. The IDDS team also aims to identify and involve more partners in future. Studies of new methods HIV prevention are extremely complex and usually take years, but in the meantime, the IDDS team's idea might provide a relatively quick way to improve how doctors give medicines to babies. Their invention provides a low-cost alternative to the use of syrups, which are expensive and usually require refrigeration. After the official end of the workshop, the IDDS team made a preliminary contact with the Institute for Pediatric Innovation in Boston, and hopes to identify pharmaceutical companies that might be interested in this use of their invention.

"There is a long way to go but it definitely will make a big difference if it finally works. I too plan to research on it at Cambridge alongside my Masters," says Gerrard.

• Find out more about the team's work
• Contact the team at team@justmilk.org
• Find out more information about IDDS
• BBC News Website
• Cambridge University Website
• Read about EWB-UK's research programme