She wanted to create a test so simple that "anyone who can cook" could use it—then she saved millions of lives in places where hospitals don't exist. Meet the Chinese-born scientist who revolutionized disease testing for the world's poorest people.
The Problem Nobody Wanted to Solve
In 2002, Dr. Helen Lee faced an impossible challenge. Millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa were dying from HIV, hepatitis B, and other infectious diseases—not because treatments didn't exist, but because they couldn't get diagnosed.Traditional laboratory tests required:
Blood samples shipped to distant labs
Expensive equipment
Highly trained technicians
Electricity and refrigeration
Days or weeks for results
In remote African villages where temperatures hit 50°C (122°F), where roads are impassable during rainy season, where the nearest hospital might be 100 miles away, this system simply didn't work.
Patients would give blood samples and then vanish. By the time results came back weeks later—if they came back at all—83% of patients in some regions were lost to follow-up.
Mothers with HIV gave birth to babies who went untested. Half of HIV-positive infants died before their second birthday, undiagnosed and untreated.
The medical establishment focused on high-tech solutions for wealthy countries.Helen Lee did the opposite."If I'd Stayed at Abbott, I Would Have Been Fired"
Born in China and educated in Britain and France, Dr. Lee had worked at Abbott Laboratories, a major US healthcare company, before joining the University of Cambridge's Diagnostics Development Unit.In 2002, she founded Diagnostics for the Real World (DRW) with a single, uncompromising mission: create diagnostic tests that work in "the real world"—the dusty, sweltering, resource-starved places where most people actually live.
Her colleagues thought she was crazy. "If I'd still been at Abbott I would have been fired a long time ago," Lee later admitted. "In fact, I would have fired myself because you can't do this in two to three years."Most biotech companies chase profits in wealthy markets. Lee was designing for the poorest of the poor—people who couldn't pay, in places with no infrastructure.
Finding funding was nearly impossible. Who invests in a product that will never be profitable?But Lee persisted."Throughout the development of SAMBA we have maintained a purity of purpose," she said, "concentrating always on the problems of how to carry out a highly sophisticated test in a hostile environment of dust, high heat and humidity. More often than not, things were stacked against us, but we never gave up."The Breakthrough: SAMBA
After five years of development, in 2011, Lee's team unveiled SAMBA—the Simple Amplification Based Assay. And it was revolutionary. Unlike traditional tests that detect antibodies (which takes time to develop and doesn't work for infants), SAMBA detects the virus's genetic material directly from a tiny blood sample. The entire testing process happens inside a single machine using disposable cartridges:
Results in under 90 minutes (some versions faster)
Reads like a pregnancy test: one line = negative, two lines = positive
No specialist training needed
Survives temperatures up to 37°C (98.6°F) for nine months without refrigeration
Runs on batteries for 8 hours when electricity fails
Can be used by anyone with minimal training
"We wanted something that anyone who can cook can use," Lee explained. The Zimbabwe Department of Health tested it with 40 healthcare workers of varying skill levels—from doctors to community health workers with basic training. Everyone could operate it successfully.
The Impact
The numbers tell the story:By 2016, SAMBA had tested over 70,000 people for HIV in Malawi and Uganda alone. The Zimbabwe government ordered 6 million test kits. By 2020, millions had been tested across Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, and beyond. But behind those numbers are individual lives: Mothers who learned their HIV status during pregnancy and received treatment in time to prevent transmission to their babies. Infants diagnosed at birth who received antiretroviral therapy before the virus ravaged their immune systems.
Healthcare workers in remote clinics who could finally provide same-day diagnosis and treatment, instead of watching patients disappear into the bush with unknown status."It's About Being Useful in Your Life"
In 2016, Dr. Helen Lee won the European Inventor Award in the Popular Prize category, receiving a record-breaking 36,300 votes—64% of the total, the highest percentage ever recorded.
The European Patent Office President said: "The overwhelming public vote for Helen Lee recognises her major contribution to the early detection and treatment of infectious diseases in areas most in need." But Lee's work didn't stop. When COVID-19 struck in 2020, her team repurposed SAMBA II to detect SARS-CoV-2 in just eight weeks—from concept to regulatory approval.
The rapid test became one of only three "Category 1" COVID point-of-care tests used in the UK's National Health Service, requiring no confirmation by other platforms. During the pandemic, SAMBA testing in UK hospitals reduced patient wait times on COVID holding wards from 58.5 hours to 29.9 hours, freeing up isolation rooms and enabling faster access to surgery, chemotherapy, transplants, and maternity services. Helen Lee's company, Diagnostics for the Real World, retains a maximum of 15% of profits—deliberately structured to prioritize access over profit. The goal was never to get rich.
"I think the most important thing is to be useful in your life," Lee has said. "When I see that our immediate results made a difference in their lives, then you really look at the effort, and you say yes, that was worth it."The Legacy Helen Lee proved that the best technology isn't always the most sophisticated—it's the most accessible.
Her innovation wasn't making the test more complex. It was making it simpler, tougher, cheaper, and deployable anywhere on Earth.
She showed that you don't need a laboratory to diagnose disease. You just need someone willing to design for the people who need it most.
Today, SAMBA machines sit in remote health clinics across Africa, Southeast Asia, and beyond—places without consistent electricity, without paved roads, without trained lab technicians. These simple machines, no bigger than a coffee maker, are saving lives every single day. And it all started because one Chinese-born scientist refused to accept that people should die simply because they were born in the wrong place.
Helen Lee didn't just invent a diagnostic test. She invented hope—packaged in a cartridge small enough to fit in your hand.
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