Emerging and Digital Health and Diagnostics

The Emerging and Digital Health & Diagnostics group at ISGlobal is dedicated to understanding, detecting and responding to emerging infectious diseases through innovative diagnostic and digital health solutions.

Our work focuses on vector-borne and travel-related infections that are expanding geographically, such as West Nile virus, chikungunya, yellow fever and other pathogens transmitted by mosquitoes and ticks. We examine how global mobility, climate change and urbanisation are reshaping the epidemiology of these diseases.

Our approach

Our research sits at the intersection of clinical care, public health and digital technology. We develop and evaluate rapid diagnostic tools and connected devices, explore smartphone-based and AI-assisted test interpretation, and design digital platforms that integrate clinical, laboratory and environmental data to support real-time surveillance and outbreak response.

By combining field studies, implementation research and data science, we aim to generate evidence that:

• improves patient management,
• strengthens early warning systems, and
• informs policies addressing emerging and neglected infections.

Collaboration and outreach

The group works closely with the Hospital Clínic Travel Medicine and International Health services, as well as with national and international partners. Through blogs and outreach activities on topics such as ticks, West Nile virus and arboviral threats, we also contribute to raising awareness and promoting informed decision-making among travellers, clinicians and the general public.

Research areas

Key research interests of the group include:

• Epidemiology and clinical impact of emerging and re-emerging vector-borne diseases, including arboviruses (e.g. West Nile virus, chikungunya, yellow fever) and tick-borne infections.
• Digital tools for risk assessment in travellers and migrants, including decision-support systems and pre-travel counselling resources.
• Development and validation of rapid diagnostic tests and connected readers for emerging infections in both clinical and field settings.
• Smartphone- and AI-assisted interpretation of lateral flow and other rapid tests, including image and video analysis to improve sensitivity, quantification and standardisation.
• Integration of diagnostic devices with digital health platforms, electronic medical records and surveillance systems for real-time data capture and visualisation.
• Use of digital epidemiology approaches, such as mobility data, environmental information and online signals, to map transmission risk and support early outbreak detection.
• Impact of climate change, land use and urbanisation on vectors and pathogens, and implications for surveillance and control strategies.
• Implementation research on the acceptability, usability and cost-effectiveness of digital and diagnostic innovations in low-resource and peri-urban settings.
• Science communication and public engagement on emerging infections and vectors, including blogs and outreach materials for travellers and affected communities.

Selected Papers

• Julia Pedreira-Rincón, Leire Balerdi-Sarasola, Guillermo Villanueva, Pedro E. Fleitas, Alfons Jimenez, Alfredo Mayor, Jose Muñoz, Carme Subirà, Miriam J. Alvarez-Martinez, Paula Petrone, Daniel Camprubí-Ferrer, Claudio Parolo. pLDH to identify severity in imported malaria: Implementing smartphone video analysis for rapid clinical decision-making, Biosensors and Bioelectronics, Volume 294, 2026, 118228. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bios.2025.118228
• Yang, Q. et al. (2025). An aptamer-based electrochemical sensor for the quantification of the malaria biomarker lactate dehydrogenase, Biosensors and Bioelectronics, 274, 117152. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bios.2025.117152
• Maria Cambra-Pellejà, Lisette van Lieshout, Luis Baptista-Pires, Miguel Vilaplana, José Muñoz, Javier Gandasegui, Claudio Parolo. Crucial role of biosensors in the detection of helminth biomarkers in public health programmes, The Lancet Microbe, Volume 6, Issue 2, 2025, 100964. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanmic.2024.100964
• Pedreira-Rincón J, Rivas L, Comenge J, Skouridou V, Camprubí-Ferrer D, Muñoz J, O'Sullivan CK, Chamorro-Garcia A, Parolo C. A comprehensive review of competitive lateral flow assays over the past decade. Lab Chip. 2025;25(11):2578–2608. https://doi.org/10.1039/d4lc01075b
• Parolo C, Sena-Torralba A, Bergua JF, et al. Tutorial: design and fabrication of nanoparticle-based lateral-flow immunoassays. Nature Protocols. 2020;15(12):3788–3816. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41596-020-0357-x
• Claudio Parolo et al. Real-time monitoring of a protein biomarker. ACS Sensors. 2020;5(7):1877–1881.
• Claudio Parolo et al. E-DNA scaffold sensors and the reagentless, single-step measurement of HIV-diagnostic antibodies in human serum. Microsystems & Nanotechnology. 2020;6:13. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41378-019-0119-5
• Camprubí-Ferrer D. et al. Causes of fever in returning travelers: a European multicenter prospective cohort study. Journal of Travel Medicine. 2022. https://doi.org/10.1093/jtm/taac002
• Camprubí-Ferrer D. et al. Doxycycline responding illnesses in returning travelers with undifferentiated non-malaria fever. Journal of Travel Medicine. 2022. https://doi.org/10.1093/jtm/taac094
• Peiró-Mestres A. et al. Emergence of Oropouche virus among international travelers. Enferm Infecc Microbiol Clin. 2025.
• Camprubí-Ferrer D. et al. Assessing viral metagenomics for the diagnosis of acute undifferentiated fever in returned travellers. Journal of Travel Medicine. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1093/jtm/taae029
• Camprubí-Ferrer D. et al. Executive Summary of the Spanish Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Imported Febrile Illnesses. Enferm Infecc Microbiol Clin. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eimce.2024.05.011
• Camprubí-Ferrer D. et al. Rapid diagnostic tests for dengue would reduce hospitalizations. Enferm Infecc Microbiol Clin. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eimc.2022.12.009
• Camprubí-Ferrer D. et al. Clinical evaluation of BioFire® multiplex-PCR Panel. Journal of Travel Medicine. 2023. https://doi.org/10.1093/jtm/taad041
• Peiró-Mestres A. et al. Frequent detection of monkeypox virus DNA. Euro Surveillance. 2022. https://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2022.27.28.2200503
• Gandasegui J. et al. Baseline gut microbiota diversity and albendazole efficacy. Parasites & Vectors. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13071-024-06469-1
• Algorta J. et al. Population pharmacokinetics of ivermectin and albendazole. Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics. 2025. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpt.3424
• Fleitas P.E. et al. Machine learning approach to identify malaria risk in travelers. Heliyon. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e28534
• Balerdi-Sarasola L. et al. MALrisk: a machine-learning–based tool to predict imported malaria. Journal of Travel Medicine. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1093/jtm/taae054

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