The Sickle Cell Awareness Group of Ontario Presents the 2023 Young Researchers’ Award Recipients
Since inception in 2005, the Sickle Cell Awareness Group of Ontario (SCAGO) supports research towards improving the health and the quality of life of people with sickle cell disease and finding a cure. To continue making strides towards this goal, the SCAGO established the Young Researchers’ Award Program (YRAP) in 2019 and presents the YRAP grant annually, to a sickle cell disease-related research project led by bright-minded post-secondary students in Ontario. This year, the SCAGO is proud to present the YRAP grant, valued at $10,000 to Ke Xin (Katie).
Katie recently completed her undergraduate studies in biomedical engineering at the University of Waterloo and is currently working on her Masters degree, also in Biomedical Engineering. She is passionate about improving the quality of clinical care through human-centric engineering design and has worked on a variety of medical technology projects.
Katie Chen’s Research
Focus: This research will focus on improving the quality of clinical care provided to patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) and enabling greater capacity for self-advocacy in patients. This research aims to address challenges such as the lack of symptom tracking tools and an organized hub of resources available for patients, and the mistreatment of SCD symptoms in the emergency department.
Goal: The goal of this project is to develop and test the SickleSupport App, a mobile companion app designed to improve the quality of care for patients with SCD through a symptom tracking tool and hub that provides financial, social, and educational resources.
Method: The research plan involves three major stages: user interface (UI) design, software development, and data analysis. The team will complete the UI development of the app, collect feedback from target users, and conduct feasibility testing to evaluate whether the SickleSupport App improves the quality of care for patients with SCD.
Project Supervisors: Dr. Ziad Solh and Dr.Eric To- London Health Science Centre, London Ontario.
Congratulations to Katie for your incredible work and achievements thus far! The Sickle Cell Awareness Group of Ontario is very excited to support your research!