National Institutes of Health

George �鶹��Ƶ team earns $2.1M to study seizure dynamics

tdonnel — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 15:06:52 +0000

George �鶹��Ƶ team earns $2.1M to study seizure dynamics tdonnel Tue, 01/13/2026 - 10:06

In This Story

John Cressman

Parag Chitnis

Remi Veneziano

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded a �鶹��Ƶ research team $2.1 million to create a system that could revolutionize the study of seizures.

The project combines the expertise of Parag Chitnis and Remi Veneziano (Department of Bioengineering), and Rob Cressman (Department of Physics and Astronomy) to develop an imaging and sensing system for identifying areas of the brain with potassium ion dysregulation.

“Potassium is one of those ions that actually inhibits activation of cells. If there's a dysfunction in those ions, you get runaway signaling. A seizure is an example of that,” said Cressman, who has studied epilepsy since his postdoctoral work. “We’re trying to develop tools that help us understand that better.”

From left, Parag Chitnis, Rob Cressman, and Remi Veneziano. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding.

When the biocompatible nanosensors, made of DNA and light-sensitive dye, encounter a local change in potassium concentration, they change their shape resulting in a change in their near-infrared fluorescence signal.

“We want to detect even very small changes in potassium,” said Veneziano, whose work involves synthesizing new nanomaterials from DNA particles, proteins, and lipids. “The system we’ve built is modular, versatile, and highly sensitive.”

These signals can be mapped in real-time using a near-infrared imaging device to understand dynamic changes in ion concentration.

One of the most promising applications is image-guided surgical intervention for epilepsy. By pinpointing seizure foci through potassium mapping, surgeons may be able to perform precise tissue ablation, removing only the affected areas.

“If you can identify the focus and remove that part of the tissue, you can sometimes stop the seizures,” said Cressman.

The four-year NIH-funded project, previously funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), builds on years of research supported by George �鶹��Ƶ’s Center for MedTech Innovation.

“This grant allows us to translate our NSF-funded feasibility work into real-world applications,” said Chitnis, who studies brain-body interactions using light and ultrasound. “We’re not just studying disease—we’re building tools that could guide future interventions.”

The toolkit will be tested across multiple platforms—from cell cultures to brain slices to intact mammalian models—allowing researchers to study bioelectrical activity at various scales.

The team also sees potential for assessing functional recovery after traumatic brain injury. Scar tissue can disrupt potassium regulation, and the nanosensors may help identify regions at risk of developing seizure foci. As the research progresses, the team hopes to open new pathways for understanding and treating complex brain disorders.

Topics

Bioengineering

College of Science

National Science Foundation

Kyeung Mi Oh, PhD, MSN, RN, FAAN

With NIH grant, George �鶹��Ƶ researcher refines AI storytelling tool for dementia care

Taylor Thomas — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 12:50:12 +0000

With NIH grant, George �鶹��Ƶ researcher refines AI storytelling tool for dementia care Taylor Thomas Tue, 10/28/2025 - 08:50

In This Story

For people living with early memory loss, recalling and sharing life stories can be a powerful act. It’s the idea behind “reminiscence therapy,” an approach for treating dementia that uses personal memories to boost mood, cognition, and connection.

Kyeung Mi Oh. Photo provided.

Now, �鶹��Ƶ nursing professor Kyeung Mi Oh is working to make that therapy more accessible for diverse communities. She’s serving as co-principal investigator on a new $2.9 million grant from the National Institute on Aging to refine the LifeBio Memory app, an artificial-intelligence platform that helps older adults capture their memories and share them with caregivers.

Earlier versions of the LifeBio Memory app have reached nursing homes and assisted-living facilities nationwide, with residents showing greater engagement and fewer symptoms of depression. The new phase brings the app into community settings—with older adults living at home with a caregiver—and expands to multiple languages and cultural contexts, including English, Spanish, and Korean.

A nurse scientist with expertise in gerontology, Oh leads the project’s community-based research arm. “We want to see how storytelling technology can improve quality of life and relationships for both the older adult and the caregiver,” she said. “When people talk about their past, they often smile. It strengthens social support and emotional closeness.”

Over the next three years, Oh’s team—including co-principal investigator Lisbeth Sanders, founder and CEO of LifeBio Inc.—will conduct usability testing followed by a randomized controlled trial with 84 caregiver–care recipient pairs.

While LifeBio’s engineers refine the app’s AI features, such as automatically generating digital life-story books and multimedia “memory videos,” Oh is studying what happens when people use it. The research will examine psychosocial outcomes such as loneliness, depression, and relationship quality, alongside overall quality of life.

“We’re working to make LifeBio Memory accessible for people of different languages and cultural backgrounds, so older adults can tell their life stories in their own voices,” Oh said. “By adapting the platform with AI to reflect cultural nuances, we hope to help a wide range of adults with early memory loss stay connected to family and caregivers, improve their quality of life, and ease feelings of loneliness or depression that can speed cognitive decline.”

If the project is successful, researchers say it could offer a widely scalable, affordable tool for dementia support that’s available for people to use in their own homes and in their own languages.

Topics

Dementia

Aging

Older Adults

Artificial Intelligence

Nursing Faculty

grants

NIH grant funding

George �鶹��Ƶ researchers awarded $4.65 million NIH grant to explore chronic knee pain

ckearney — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 21:31:42 +0000

George �鶹��Ƶ researchers awarded $4.65 million NIH grant to explore chronic knee pain ckearney Tue, 09/30/2025 - 17:31

For millions of Americans, chronic musculoskeletal pain is a daily reality that makes even simple activities like walking across a room, playing with grandchildren, or just getting through a workday feel daunting. At �鶹��Ƶ, researchers at the Center for Advancing Systems Science and Bioengineering Innovation (CASSBI) are leading a new $4.65 million National Institutes of Health-funded R01 study to better understand what shapes those experiences, and how to improve care.

Photo by Getty Images

“Like many people all over the world, I have known close family members living with unexplained chronic pain,” said the project’s lead investigator Siddhartha Sikdar, professor of bioengineering and director of CASSBI. “I have seen firsthand how frustrating it can be to navigate a disjointed health care system that often does not prioritize patient voices. That’s why I’m so excited about this project. It prioritizes understanding each person’s lived experience of pain, so we can come up with better guidelines for personalized management of chronic pain.”

Chronic musculoskeletal pain is one of the world’s most common—and least understood—health conditions. It refers to ongoing pain in soft tissues of the neck, shoulders, back, hips, arms, or legs. Lower back and knee pain are leading causes of disability worldwide, disrupting work, family life, and well-being.

Despite its prevalence, the condition is poorly understood. Pain perception is difficult to measure, and each individual’s experience of chronic pain is unique. Findings on currently available diagnostic tests paint an incomplete, and sometimes misleading, picture of the underlying problems. Too often, people with chronic musculoskeletal pain encounter fragmented care, misdiagnoses, or treatments that are expensive, invasive, and ineffective. Many report feeling dismissed or unheard.

The research team will work to solve this problem by studying how physical, biological, emotional, and social factors come together to shape the daily experience of living with chronic knee pain. They will look at whether analyzing multiple symptoms over time can help identify important turning points in a person’s pain journey, and how each individual’s particular mix of stress, biology, and movement plays a role in achieving maximal potential for function.

Siddhartha Sikdar. Photo by Ron Aira/Office of University Branding.

Over the next four years, the team will recruit participants with chronic knee pain who are receiving treatment at Optimal Motion, a community-based physical therapy clinic. For one year, participants will be followed closely, with data collected every three months on their biomechanics, physical function, biological health, and psychosocial well-being. A smartphone app will also allow participants to share daily reflections, giving researchers an unprecedented look into the lived experience of chronic pain.

“Chronic pain is not just about an abnormal finding in a single body part,” Sikdar explained. “It’s an individual, day-to-day experience that cuts across physical, emotional, and social dimensions.”

Improving chronic pain management without overreliance on opioids and other medications with harmful side effects is a critical priority for addressing the ongoing public health crisis of opioid and other medication misuse, addiction, and overdose in America. Better understanding the factors that shape pain could lead to more effective personalized care and help reduce the devastating ripple effects of medication misuse and addiction.

This study is different from traditional pain research in three important ways. First, it uses a whole person focus. Instead of viewing knee pain only as a local problem in the joint, the team is taking a holistic approach that considers the entire person and the many factors influencing their pain. Second, it puts patient voices at the center. By using advances in large language models, researchers will analyze patient narratives, stories, and reflections, capturing rich perspectives often overlooked by conventional assessments. Third, it will track change over time. Rather than relying only on one-time snapshots, the study will follow patients’ pain experiences as they shift from day to day and month to month.

The interdisciplinary project will involve medical scientists, community-based medical professionals, engineers, data scientists, neuroscientists, and CASSBI’s chronic pain advisory board of patient advocates and community-based practitioners. George �鶹��Ƶ faculty collaborators include:

Kevin Lybarger, assistant professor, Department of Information Sciences and Technology, College of Engineering and Computing (expertise: artificial intelligence, natural language processing)
Secili DeStefano, adjunct faculty, Department of Health Administration and Policy, College of Public Health (expertise: physical therapy)
William Rosenberger, Distinguished University Professor, Department of Statistics, College of Engineering and Computing (expertise: statistics)
Seiyon (Ben) Lee, assistant professor, Department of Statistics, College of Engineering and Computing (expertise: statistical modeling of complex data)
Samuel Acuña, research assistant professor, Institute for Digital Innovation, Office of Research, Innovation, and Economic Impact (expertise: rehabilitation engineering, human-centered product design)
Cameron Nowzari, associate professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering and Computing (expertise: robotics)
Lynn Gerber, MD, professor emerita, medical doctor, Inova Center for Integrated Research (expertise: rheumatology, internal medicine, rehabilitation)

The team is also partnering with the University of Wisconsin–Madison and community-based providers such as Optimal Motion.

The project supports NIH’s interest in advancing the understanding of individual differences in pain with a whole person approach to personalized medicine. It also aligns closely with CASSBI’s mission to bring together scientists, engineers, health care professionals, and community members to drive real-world medical innovation.

For more than a decade, George �鶹��Ƶ researchers at CASSBI have been working across disciplines to better understand chronic pain and this new study builds on that legacy with fresh tools, new partnerships, and functional outcomes that reflect wha patients have expressed is important to them .

“Pain is a uniquely personal perception and experience,” said Sikdar. “Our goal is to listen more closely, understand more fully, and translate those insights into better care guidelines and treatments. Ultimately, it’s about helping people get back to living their lives.”

Find more innovation on the CASSBI website

Grand Challenge Initiative

Explore George �鶹��Ƶ’s Grand Challenge Initiative addressing the greatest threats to humanity’s ability to live a peaceful, healthy, prosperous, and just existence.

In This Story

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GCI-Grand Challenge Initiative

College of Public Health

GCI-Health

George �鶹��Ƶ public health researchers enter new phase of NIH funded research

Shayla Brown — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 15:22:40 +0000

George �鶹��Ƶ public health researchers enter new phase of NIH funded research Shayla Brown Thu, 09/11/2025 - 11:22

Scientists, nurses, and researchers in �鶹��Ƶ’s College of Public Health (CPH) have successfully progressed to the third phase of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) program studying a broad range of early life exposures on child health.

The NIH grant provides more than $157 million in awards for Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO), and George �鶹��Ƶ will receive $1.35 million annually until 2030 to conduct the study.

ECHO researcher working with one of the participants in the Population Health Center. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding.

George �鶹��Ƶ is one of 45 research sites across the country gathering longitudinal data on more than 30,000 children; 1,059 of those children are enrolled in George �鶹��Ƶ’s ECHO program. The research is conducted in George �鶹��Ƶ’s Population Health Center, the only clinical site in Virginia.

“For this phase of ECHO, we’re gathering information on novel chemical exposures, preconception behaviors, early exposures, and the consequences of regional and social determinants of health,” said Kathi Huddleston, PhD ’08, principal investigator and CPH associate professor. “Following our large and diverse ECHO population will enhance the ability to go from society to biology to more positive health outcomes.”

George �鶹��Ƶ faculty and students working on the project include alumni Grace Lawrence, PhD ’18, Daisy Posada, MA ’18, Megan Bayne, MA ’18, Shiva Zarean, BS ‘24, and Alma Fuller, Lynda Ashie, and Bruna Mayen, a senior biology major who also acts as the project and lab manager.

The project has followed these families since their 2012 to 2019 pregnancy.

“Many of the families sharing their health information to help the next generation include George �鶹��Ƶ alumni,” Huddleston added.

While the project tracks changes in child health over time, the study had to adapt during the pandemic when researchers moved to remote data collection. Since then, ECHO has been instrumental in advancing remote research study activities.

ECHO researcher working with one of the participants in the Population Health Center. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding.

“When the kids were babies, we received surveys and sample kits in the mail to provide teeth and hair samples that we would send back. Now we come into the center once a year for check-ups,” said Susy Ashkar, a mother of three boys, ages 9, 6, and 4, who participate in the ECHO study.

“After quality assurance and review determined the validity and veracity of the data, we are now continuing many of these remote practices to decrease the study burden on our families,” said Huddleston.

This has added to Mayen’s role as lab manager as she collects teeth and hair samples as well as basic anthropometric measurements to assess the health and well-being of our children as they grow.

“As a biobank, we provide high-quality, well-documented biological samples ensuring they remain viable and uncontaminated, for long-term preservation under controlled conditions so they can be used for future analyses, thereby serving as a research-enabling platform that advances science,” said Mayen.

“From the research we’ve conducted during this phase, we can see that groups of children who share a common characteristic or experience. For example, those born in the same year give us the advantage to see development and change over time, help identify patterns, trends, and predictors. All that is possible because of the work we do every day in collecting biospecimens, anthropometrics, and many surveys in the participating ECHO families,” Mayen said.

“We have tapped on a wonderful resource of families willing to share of their time to help science to improve population health, and in that act are demonstrating to their children that citizen science matters,” Huddleston said. “I can’t wait to see some of these young ECHO participants enroll at George �鶹��Ƶ and bring with them that spirit of public health.”

In This Story

Dr. Kathi Huddleston, PhD, MSN

Topics

College of Public Health

public health research

Community Engagement

population health center

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Engineering better vision: George �鶹��Ƶ professors lead $1.17M NIH project

Martha Bushong — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 19:12:10 +0000

Engineering better vision: George �鶹��Ƶ professors lead $1.17M NIH project Martha Bushong Wed, 07/30/2025 - 15:12

In This Story

Ningshi Yao

Quentin Sanders

Qi Wei

Understanding and treating complex eye movement disorders like strabismus has long been a challenge for clinicians. Now, researchers at �鶹��Ƶ are pioneering a new approach using robotics and artificial intelligence to engineer a better future for vision care.

Ningshi Yao, an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been awarded a prestigious $1.17 million R01 grant to lead a groundbreaking four-year project. The award comes from the joint National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) "Smart Health and Biomedical Research in the Era of Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Data Science (SCH)" program.

The funded project, "Study Coordinated Human Eye Movement and Strabismus Using a Novel Artificial Muscle-Driven Robotic Eyes," will be conducted in collaboration with co-investigators Qi Wei and Quentin Sanders from George �鶹��Ƶ’s Department of Bioengineering and consultant Joseph Demer in the Stein Eye Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles.

From left: Qi Wei (Bioengineering Department), Ningshi Yao (Electrical and Computer Engineering Department), and Quentin Sanders (Bioengineering and Mechanical Engineering Departments). Photo provided

At the core of the research is the creation of robotic eyes powered by artificial muscles that replicate the precise, coordinated movements of human eyes. “Strabismus affects more than 18 million Americans, yet current treatments often fall short, with success rates ranging from 30 to 80%,” said Yao. “Our goal is to use robotic systems and artificial intelligence to better understand how the eyes work—and ultimately improve how we diagnose and treat these disorders.”

The research team will build robotic eyes that closely mimic human biomechanics and use them as tools to study the underlying causes of strabismus. These systems will allow for a level of control and repeatability not possible in human subjects, offering a unique window into how eye muscles and connective tissues—especially the so-called “pulleys”—work together to guide vision.

To make the robotic system truly intelligent, the project will also apply reinforcement learning, a type of artificial intelligence, to discover how humans naturally control eye movements. By training the robots with real patient data and expert-informed objectives, the team hopes to reverse-engineer the strategies humans use—leading to better understanding and new treatment pathways.

In the final phase of the project, the team will integrate patient-specific data into the robotic system to simulate different surgical outcomes. This will allow ophthalmologists to test and refine treatment strategies before operating, increasing precision and improving long-term results.

The project’s impact extends beyond eye health. The robotic muscle actuators and control models developed here could advance robotics, AI, biomechanics, and even the design of soft, adaptive machines.

In addition to scientific discoveries, the research team will build educational tools and training platforms using the robotic eyes, helping to prepare the next generation of vision specialists.

Topics

CEC faculty research

Bioengineering

National Science Foundation

Helen Chin receives NIH grant to study associations between air pollution and the onset of puberty

Jennifer Pocock — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 17:24:57 +0000

Helen Chin receives NIH grant to study associations between air pollution and the onset of puberty Jennifer Pocock Tue, 02/04/2025 - 12:24

Funding will advance research on children’s health using data from the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) program

Helen Chin, Assistant Professor, Global and Community Health

Helen Chin, an assistant professor in Department of Global and Community Health at �鶹��Ƶ, received a new grant from the National Institutes of Health’s ECHO Opportunities and Innovation Fund to study the impacts of air pollution exposure on child development. 

Chin’s work will focus on how exposure to air pollutants before birth and as infants—key developmental periods—might relate to the timing of puberty in children. It will also examine the role childhood body mass index (BMI) may contribute.

“There are growing concerns about how puberty is starting earlier in children and the impacts this might have on childhood and long-term health,” says Chin. She received the grant in November 2024.

The ECHO Opportunities and Innovation Fund is an NIH-funded grant mechanism to support early career investigators who propose projects that introduce new research, tools, and technologies in the ECHO Program. Chin will collaborate with Global and Community Health professor Michael Bloom and researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina ECHO site.

Chin is a recognized expert in reproductive epidemiology and environmental factors that can negatively impact reproductive health. Her work on exposure to environmental endocrine disruptors and reproductive outcomes has earned several awards for research excellence.

ECHO is a national collaborative consortium funded by the NIH that supports long-term research on pediatric health with its mission “to enhance the health of children for generations to come.” It brings diverse participant populations from across the country together to standardize and pool data on a large scale that can then support research at a broader and more nuanced level than individual smaller studies ever could.

Chin’s award adds to the $1.78 million in annual ECHO funding awarded to the college since January 2020, adding to George �鶹��Ƶ’s ongoing leadership, innovation, and successful relationships with its participants. George �鶹��Ƶ’s School of Nursing has been a collection site for ECHO since 2020.

ECHO data have already informed research that examines toxic metal buildup in mothers, how school lunches impact obesity in children, and the disparities in sleep patterns in children of different races and ethnicities.

In This Story

Helen Chin, MPH, PhD

Topics

Child and Adolescent Health

NIH grant funding

Air Pollution

environmental engineering

Strategic Direction

George �鶹��Ƶ REACHes for regional health policy solutions

Nathan Kahl — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 15:53:52 +0000

George �鶹��Ƶ REACHes for regional health policy solutions Nathan Kahl Fri, 11/01/2024 - 11:53

As the planet’s climate shifts, so too does the health of its inhabitants. Rising temperatures, wildfires, and worsening air quality are environmental and public health concerns.

With a new $3.69 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Research and Engagement for Action in Climate and Health (REACH) Center is set to tackle the urgent intersection of climate change and public health in the nation’s capital. �鶹��Ƶ is part of a team of institutions working on environmental health innovation that includes George Washington University (GWU), Howard University (HU), and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). The REACH Center will be directed by Susan Anenberg, professor and chair of the Milken Institute School of Public Health at GWU.

Jim Kinter, director of the Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies and the Virginia Climate Center (VCC) at George �鶹��Ƶ, sits on the REACH internal advisory board. VCC's interdisciplinary team of �鶹��Ƶ experts conduct research on Virginia’s vulnerability and risks to the impacts of climate change in order to provide local decision makers with actionable climate information.

“Climate change is having negative impacts on public health, and projected future climate changes will only exacerbate those effects, most acutely felt in underserved communities," said Kinter. "The REACH Center serves a vital role in making data and information more accessible, more effective, and more useful for conducting research and co-producing equitable solutions to advance public health resilience. With George �鶹��Ƶ experts working across several disciplines, the center has a unique and powerful capability to transform research and applications in public health, and the emphasis on community engagement will help translate findings into practical solutions.”

Lucas Henneman, an assistant professor in the Sid and Reva Dewberry Department of Civil, Environmental, and Infrastructure Engineering at George �鶹��Ƶ, is leading a research project within the center studying climate policy in Washington, D.C. He’ll look at congestion pricing—charging a toll for vehicles traveling into a central part of the city—and the impacts on air pollution and local health. The D.C. government previously showed interest in such policies, and Henneman is working with researchers at George �鶹��Ƶ and GWU along with a transportation advocacy group called Greater Greater Washington, who have deep ties in the D.C. government and interested community groups.

“The big thrust is that there's all this useful data out there that can be used to better protect public health from impacts of climate change," said Henneman, "but how do we make that data useful to stakeholders like researchers, community groups, and local governments?”

The co-location of these entities in the Washington, D.C., region allows them to work with the federal and regional governments, as well as other experts in public health and big data. The REACH Center will also look broadly at the implication of health and climate data.

“How do you process air pollution and public health information in a way that can be useful for different stakeholders,” said Henneman. “In D.C., for example, you have wards, neighborhoods, and census tracts, and you might have different amounts of data in each of those geographies and different stakeholders would want to see information about their locations. So, how do we interpret the outcome of a policy on these different geographic boundaries?”

Daniel Tong, director of George �鶹��Ƶ's Cooperative Institute of Satellite and Earth System Studies, is co-directing REACH’s Exposure Assessment Core. He gave an example of how even far-flung incidents can affect local populations, and why it’s important to understand this impact. “Rising temperature and droughts bring more wildfire smoke and every-day air pollution to cities like Washington, D.C.," said Tong, who is also an an associate professor in the College of Science. "It is critical to measure how these changes harm people’s health. The exposure core will leverage George �鶹��Ƶ’s world-renowned expertise in atmospheric and climate sciences to support health researchers and practitioners to understand these impacts.”

Jenna Krall, an associate professor in George �鶹��Ƶ's College of Public Health, also brings expertise to the project, further emphasizing the interdisciplinary aspects.

The NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative (CCHI) funded 16 new exploratory research centers in September, including the REACH Center. These centers will support the development of innovative transdisciplinary research into the complex impacts of climate change on health.

Henneman noted that, in the long-run, this could mean more opportunities for George �鶹��Ƶ researchers to study how regulations can consider the intersection of climate change and health.

In This Story

Lucas Henneman

Jenna Krall, PhD

Learn more about the Virginia Climate Center

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Public Health

Climate Change

climate policy

College of Science

College of Public Health

Strategic Direction

CEIE Success Stories

This George �鶹��Ƶ alum can help you sleep better

ckearney — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 16:16:30 +0000

This George �鶹��Ƶ alum can help you sleep better ckearney Thu, 09/26/2024 - 12:16

In high school and as an undergraduate student, Dan Gartenberg, MA Psychology ’12, PhD ’16, would stay up late and struggle to wake early, a typical experience for many students. Early on in his graduate studies at �鶹��Ƶ, he took a course on the neuroscience of sleep and was hooked.

Dan Gartenberg. Photo provided

Gartenberg became passionate about the study of sleep, due to his own personal struggles with sleep—including delayed sleep phase syndrome and insomnia. He is now founder and CEO of SleepSpace and a scientific advisor to other companies in the sleep science field, including Wesper, Biostrap, CPAP.com, Perfectly Snug, and MDBiowellness.

“�鶹��Ƶ is where I learned to be a scientist, constantly question things, and where I learned the scientific method. That’s an invaluable thing,” he said.

For his dissertation in psychology, Gartenberg worked with the Naval Research Laboratory to develop artificial intelligence (AI) models that could help predict when people, such as pilots, are getting fatigued doing a task for a long period of time by using eye tracking data.

“I was making models of fatigue and using different cognitive tasks to predict when errors would occur,” he said. “You don’t want a pilot to crash a $30 million aircraft, and there are ways to tell when someone is tired based on their [movements].”

Gartenberg published several papers and released his first few sleep apps around this time. He worked closely with the late George �鶹��Ƶ professor Raja Parasuraman, an expert in the field who developed one of the main theories of vigilance.

Photo provided

While at George �鶹��Ƶ, Gartenberg received grants from the National Science Foundation to test whether playing certain sounds during sleep could encourage deeper sleep. His research team brought people into a lab and hooked them up to polysomnography—like an EEG but used to measure multiple physiological data streams.

They played sounds on the up state of delta brainwaves and showed some evidence that it primes deeper sleep. Gartenberg and his colleagues went on to get more grant funding in that area. But he found having someone wear a device was cumbersome.

“And it wasn’t a great form factor for consumers, so I pivoted a bit toward insomnia,” he said.

Then, in 2020, he received a $2.5 million grant from National Institutes of Health to develop a new digital therapeutic for insomnia. He recently ran a randomized control trial to test this novel therapy. This is the main focus of his company, SleepSpace. He also raised $1.8 million from venture capitalists to build this sleep improvement platform.

First, Gartenberg and team created very accurate sleep trackers. Gartenberg made some algorithms on the Apple watch and using smartphone sensors to track sleep in real time for the purpose of playing sounds to augment sleep and later integrated smart lights.

Gartenberg said that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is the treatment for insomnia recommended by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and other academies. So the team built a six-week CBT course with collaborators at Penn State University and the University of Arizona. The software also integrates with sound and light devices to promote improve sleep quality, and includes meditations and interactive content driven by an AI chatbot called Dr. Snooze.

“Our software allows the coach or a sleep doctor to see their client’s data from the app and wearable devices, so they can see the perception of sleep alongside what’s happening and create customized sleep programs,” he said.

Gartenberg and colleagues showed that when people experience the treatment as usual plus the software, more people were able to avoid insomnia remission, and it was more effective at treating it on some metrics. Since launching, they have 30 therapists and coaches using the platform and have seen more than 100,000 downloads.

“We’re augmenting the therapist, not replacing them,” Gartenberg emphasized.

He’s currently working on developing a comprehensive package to improve sleep and also launching a new smart topper and bedsheet called the SleepSpace Smart Sheet that will integrate with his current software and be able to control the temperature on either side of the bed. It can help with falling asleep, hot flashes, night sweats, and navigating different temperature needs of partners.

And it all started at George �鶹��Ƶ. Gartenberg said the university played a major role in his career as a scientist and entrepreneur.

“George �鶹��Ƶ gave me, as a PhD, the freedom to pursue a lot of different interests that weren’t strictly in one field,” he said. “It was a combination of software development, science, and even intellectual property. I worked with �鶹��Ƶ’s [Tech Transfer] team on some patents, and I got my first patent granted through that collaboration.”

Gartenberg’s advice for �鶹��Ƶ students is to know who you are and what you want. He took the entrepreneur route, but he admits it’s not for everyone, and it can be quite stressful. However, he thinks entrepreneur skills are more important than ever, especially creative problem solving and persistence.

“If you can creatively solve problems, that can be applied to almost anything.”

Learn more about Gartenberg's work

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Alumni

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

patent

National Science Foundation

Spirit Fall 2024

Spirit Magazine

Bioengineering alumna completes a fun(gal) summer internship with NIH

Shayla Brown — Fri, 13 Sep 2024 18:07:12 +0000

Bioengineering alumna completes a fun(gal) summer internship with NIH Shayla Brown Fri, 09/13/2024 - 14:07

�鶹��Ƶ bioengineering alumna Alessandra Coogan took advantage of all the opportunities associated with her internship at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, this summer. That included NIH workshops and seminars where Coogan was able to tap into various institutes and branches of engineering, as well as network with professional engineers.

“I thought interning at NIH meant that you come to the lab, work, then leave, but it's actually a huge institution and offers so many opportunities to socialize, network, and developing yourself as a professional scientist. It was really amazing,” said Coogan.

Alessandra Coogan. Photo provided.

Coogan’s internship through the Biomedical Engineering Summer Internship Program (BESIP) ran 10 weeks from June 3 to August 10.

“It's a little bit more competitive for bioengineering-related lab research. There's only 24 of us [in the BESIP program] in total, and it’s a very close-knit community program,” said Coogan, an Honors College student who graduated in May with her bachelor's in bioengineering with a concentration in biomaterials and nanomedicine from the College of Engineering and Computing.

The lab project pertains to immuno-engineering, which combines immunology and engineering, and explores the origins and potential mitigation of autoimmune responses triggered by implants in the body.

Coogan conducted research and development on drug delivery, tissue engineering, and scaffold development, which is a particular interest of hers.

“I love wet lab and getting my hands dirty while working on projects and experiments, and this experience definitely solidified that for me in terms of what I hope to do professionally,” said Coogan.

Alessandra Coogan in a National Institutes of Health lab. Photo provided.

Coogan was also given the chance to work on a second independent project, which is pretty rare. It focused on the treatment of fungal infections in the upper respiratory tract.

“A lot of treatments for fungal infections in your mouth, your lungs, your nose, especially in the nasal cavity, are aggressive and very systemic,” said Coogan.

For certain treatments, medical professionals might have to inject an antifungal medication through an IV into the bloodstream, she explained.

“It’s kind of overkill,” Coogan said. “The treatments are harmful to patients’ kidneys and liver. My research aims to provide a local application of an antifungal medication using a hydrogel, so my experiments consist of staining cells and processing tissue. It’s been a very fun but very difficult project,” she said.

Coogan credits George �鶹��Ƶ’s Bioengineering Department for preparing her to take on a role of this caliber with NIH.

“Our department is small but mighty, and they really focus on creating excellent scientists,” said Coogan. “I've done a lot of research with Professor Rémi Veneziano in the [Laboratory for Bio-Inspired Nanoarchitectures] for two years now, and I've learned a lot from him. His research is on tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, which really interested me.”

“I feel that I have been very lucky to have Alessandra as a student in my lab,” Veneziano said. “She is very driven, and has the background, the knowledge, and the technical skills to become an excellent researcher.”

Alessandra Coogan with NIH colleagues. Photo provided.

Coogan is always willing to lend a hand to her peers, training them and sharing her research, said Veneziano.

“She also developed excellent [problem-solving] skills that she was able to leverage to perform complex experiments and help one of my graduate students in a very challenging project,” said Veneziano.

Whenever possible, Veneziano encourages his students to attend conferences and present their work to other researchers in order to build a network and also see what other labs are doing in their fields and other fields. Earlier this year, Coogan presented her work on prosthetic liners at the topping off ceremony for Fuse at �鶹��Ƶ Square alongside her peers.

Coogan returns to George �鶹��Ƶ this fall to earn her accelerated master’s in bioengineering, and Veneziano will be her committee chair.

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