Valvida

A non-electric self-regulating vaccine cooling system based on thermally expansive valves.

Due to vaccines, over 322 million children are being saved from illnesses. However, one in ten infants in the world remain unvaccinated and, non-coincidentally, most of these infants are from third world countries. Most importantly, increase in coverage has been at a standstill since 2016. This is primarily due to the soaring cost of vaccines and the decreased accessibility of electricity in third world countries. Currently, passive cooling methods that attempt to solve these problems exist, but are difficult to produce, underdeveloped, toxic for the environment, and/ or not cost-effective. We designed an inexpensive, non-toxic passive vaccine cooling system that does not rely on electricity. The system is comprised of a cylindrical cooler with separate compartments for water, salt, and vaccines. The system uses a spontaneous endothermic reaction between the water and the salt to cool down the vaccines. This reaction is regulated by thermally expansive valves that open when the cooler is too warm and close when it is too cold. Our solution offers a noble non-electric tracking system for vaccine temperature, which guarantees their desired temperature range of 2-8 °C without denaturing or freezing them. The system has not yet been developed, but our calculations (approved by the MIT THINK competition) predict a cold life of 43 hours, 13 hours longer than WHO vaccine cooler standards. This will improve vaccine coverage rates around the world, and help prevent curable diseases from spreading and taking more lives. Our innovative design opens up new possibilities for future vaccine cooling technology, as well, as no state of the art possesses our potential to maintain a passive temperature equilibrium . Finally, we expect this technology to make a significant impact on the $200 million lost annually to inaccurate temperature management in vaccine transportation.

Our solution is innovative because it pushes the boundaries of the current state of the art passive vaccine coolers. We are utilizing new technology in our valves through bimetallic strips to regulate temperature and prevent our vaccines from freezing or denaturing. Unlike Valvida, the current state of the art doesn’t aim to maintain a temperature equilibrium. In addition to developing new technology, we are utilizing previous technology, spontaneous endothermic reactions, in combination with our valve system to prevent the use of electricity.

The technology of our vaccine cooler is in its thermally expansive valves, which regulate the amount of water that comes in contact with the ammonium nitrate. These valves capitalize on the physics of bimetallic strips to twist the valve’s moving component open when the cooler is too warm for the vaccines. Inversely, when the cooler is too cold, the moving component is twisted the other way to close the valve. This technology is crucial to ensuring that the spontaneous endothermic reaction does not continue to drop the temperature below 2°C, while also maintaining the vaccines under 8 °C.

Our solution’s goals in the next 12 months include finishing our fully functional prototype and field testing our design. We have started the process of building the prototype with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and PATH.  

Over the next three to five years we hope to expand our solution to underprivileged communities and licence our product to countries and different companies that can manufacture and use Valvida. The scale of our solution will affect many lives, especially those in environments where electricity is a luxury and vaccine treatment is a rarity. We hope to increase the global coverage of vaccine beyond its current plateau.

Currently, we plan on implementing our technology through the Gates foundation to improve the vaccine transportation process.

Later, we plan on branching out the other organizations in vaccine transportation.  As we have done with the Gates Foundation and PATH, we plan on creating these business relations through already existing connections. We believe that the credibility in our success in the MIT THINK competition and potential success in SOLVE, will open doors to our involvement with world leaders in healthcare: both companies and countries.We plan on partnering with them in order to allow target communities to access our product. 

We are currently focusing on developing a prototype of our solution. After developing our prototype and conducting field testing we are planning to conduct a product licensing deal with companies and countries in order to transport vaccines to remote places and serve the people living in those communities.  

In 12 months we hope to finish building our prototype and conduct our field testing. In about three years we plan to work with different companies and countries to license and manufacture our product in order for more people to gain access to vaccination.

The population we hope to serve are those who currently do not have access to vaccination due to a lack of electricity or a specific geographical location. We expect to see an effect from Valvida immediately. With each person vaccinated, the risk of disease spreading decreases. Especially in children we expect to see increased life expectancy.

Both team members have extensive research experience with labs at the University of Iowa, Stony Brook University and UCSC.  The research experience gained through these projects have prepared both members to further develop the technology and collaborate with researchers.

Both members have extensive administrative and professional experience. To begin with, the creation and management of Valvida, LLC, has been exclusively their work. The current collaboration with the Gates foundation was born from their independent networking and professional relationships.

All experiences and skills gained through said projects will aid the team in their path to success.

The convenience of the service we provide is that there will be, for a long time, a great surplus demand for it. This guarantees that there will always be room for expansion and activity for Valvida to engage in. Furthermore, this technology is very new, which means it will grow much more in the coming years. Considering that, in this early stage, it has already gained attention from two major organizations, speaks to its potential.

The business plan is sustainable as well due to the model it operates on. Because the revenue will initially come from licensing of the technology, costs will come from marketing and management, only, and revenue will come from the demand in the industry and for our product. Additionally, donations are very prevalent in the healthcare industry, which will add a source of income we obviously will not rely on, but will likely receive. Profit will come from this process, as well, but will increase significantly once we achieve manufacturing power, simply because the materials the technology uses (plastic, styrofoam, aluminum), are so inexpensive.

In theory, two high school students can change the world with the right decisions, efforts, and skills, but, in practice, Solve increases those chances by orders of magnitude. Acquiring that support will connect Valvida with the “right skill;” we believe that seeking it is the “right decision.” With the funds, our technology will become more accessible and effective. With the support from the Solve community, we will make better-advised administrative and technological advances. Solve will offer two high school students the credibility to open doors previously unimagined. Solve will take Valvida from a project to a real healthcare asset.

Some key barriers for our solution to succeed include funding and support to build our prototype and build a manufacturing and business model. Currently we have funding and support from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation but the additional money from Solve would help us afford to continue building and the ability to field test our product which is crucial to finding design flaws and making sure our product works. Beyond funding, the support from individuals who specialize in the fields that our solution encompasses would be very valuable. Their expertise and knowledge would be able bring Valvida to reality.