UT Dallas engineering faculty will play a leading role in three of the seven inaugural grants from a new medical technologies consortium, and engineering faculty will play a supporting role in three of the consortium’s other four research awards.
The seven awards total $750,000 and include projects involving a patient-monitoring system to reduce the incidence of falls, a smart bed designed to prevent bedsores and a home-based sleep-monitoring system.
The Medical Technologies Consortium was founded in September 2009 as a collaborative research partnership involving UT Dallas, The University of Texas at Arlington, Texas Instruments and Texas Health Research & Education Institute, the research and medical education arm of Texas Health Resources.
The grants also fund research concerning breast cancer, prostate cancer, cerebral palsy and cardiovascular health.
Working with the consortium’s academic, industry and health care partners, the researchers will develop pilot programs aimed at attracting sustained, follow-on funding from sources such as federal, state and private agencies. Each of the projects includes a physician, generally affiliated with Texas Health hospitals, working closely with the research investigator.
The principal researchers for the grants are faculty members at UT Arlington and UT Dallas, with co-investigators coming from the universities and Texas Health. Clinical work will generally take place at Texas Health hospitals and their facilities, including the Texas Health Minimally Invasive Technology Center on the campus of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas.
The projects are intended to advance health care quality and patient safety, improving health in not only North Texas but around the world.
“The Medical Technologies Consortium and these initial projects show great promise for creating useful implementations of biomedical electronics for improved medical care,” said Allen Bowling, manager of research and consortia within TI’s Analog Technology Development group.
The winning proposals are:
“Nanoporous Membrane Based Blood Oxygenator and Monitoring Device”
Brian Dennis, PhD, UT Arlington (lead principal investigator)
Zeynep Çelik-Butler, PhD, UT Arlington
Digant Davé, PhD, UT Arlington
Richard Billo, PhD, UT Arlington
Dinesh Bhatia, PhD, UT Dallas
Gary Weinstein, MD, medical staff of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas
Teresa Turbeville, Texas Health Research & Education Institute
David Fosdick, MD, medical staff of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas
Thomas Russell, MD, medical staff of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas
“WAIMS: Wireless Automated Inpatient Monitoring Systems”
Roozbeh Jafari, PhD, UT Dallas (lead principal investigator)
Christopher Ray, PhD, UT Arlington
Michael Motes, PhD, UT Dallas
David Keller, PhD, UT Arlington
John Hart, MD, UT Dallas
“Smart Bed Design for Pressure Ulcer Prevention”
Mehrdad Nourani, PhD, UT Dallas (lead principal investigator)
Alan Bowling, PhD, UT Arlington
Susann Land, MD, chief quality officer, Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Hurst-Euless-Bedford
Deborah Behan, PhD (c), nurse researcher, Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Hurst-Euless-Bedford
“Haptic Guidance for Breast Biopsy System”
Venkat Devarajan, PhD, UT Arlington (lead principal investigator)
B. Prabhakaran, PhD, UT Dallas
Katherine Hall, MD, medical staff of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas
“Microfluidic Assays Embedded with Silicon Nanowire Sensors for Assessment and Prognosis of Prostate Cancer Metastasis”
Jung-Chih Chiao, PhD, UT Arlington (lead principal investigator)
Walter Hu, PhD, UT Dallas
Sanjay Awasthi, MD, medical staff of Texas Health Arlington Memorial Hospital
Jinming Gao, PhD, UT Dallas
“Wireless Home-based Sleep Apnea Detection and Sleep Quality Monitoring”
Hlaing Minn, PhD, UT Dallas (lead principal investigator)
Lakshman Tamil, PhD, UT Dallas
Larry Ammann, PhD, UT Dallas
William Brock, MD, chief quality officer, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Plano
Ishfaq Ahmad, PhD, UT Arlington
Vassilis Athitsos, PhD, UT Arlington
“A Breakthrough Probe Technology for Translating Near-Infrared Brain Imaging into a Routine Clinical Tool for Assessing Motor Deficits in Children with Cerebral Palsy”
Georgios Alexandrakis, PhD, UT Arlington (lead principal investigator)
Duncan MacFarlane, PhD, UT Dallas
Mauricio Delgado-Ayala, MD, Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children
Fillia Makedon, PhD, UT Arlington
Hanli Liu, PhD, UT Arlington
Media Contact: David Moore, UT Dallas, (972) 883-4183, david.moore1@utdallas.edu
or the Office of Media Relations, UT Dallas, (972) 883-2155, newscenter@utdallas.edu