ABOUT THIS Innovation

NeuroSense Diagnostics – the only non-contact infant suck monitoring system that will enable families to thrive. Our smartphone app will offer infant suck monitoring to a vast potential customer base—in a package far more affordable and convenient than existing options—by leveraging cutting edge, in-house computer vision technology developed by our uniquely qualified team.

ABOUT THIS RESEARCH

Infant feeding is complex and consists of sucking, swallowing, and breathing and all must be coordinated for feeding to occur successfully. Currently, assessment of infant feeding is extremely subjective and includes assessing all these components together at the same time by observing a bottle feed or by simply placing a gloved finger in the infant’s mouth to feel the strength of their suck. This trial-and-error approach can have devastating outcomes for the developing infant and can lead to feeding aversions and prolonged hospitalizations. Objectively measuring and longitudinally monitoring the patterns of non-nutritive suck (NNS)—sucking without nutrient being delivered—guides therapy and improves safety by lowering the risk of feeding aversion and the danger of milk aspiration into the lungs. Currently, no technology currently exists to track infant NNS remotely. Put simply, if we had more quantitative and accurate data, we could do more targeted feeding therapies earlier and we could blunt developmental delays.

Project Leadership

Professor Zimmerman directs the Speech and Neurodevelopment Lab (SNL, which examines the environment, psychosocial, physiological, and genetic factors surrounding sucking and feeding development. She has approximately 8 years of experience in the NICU as a feeding researcher.

Professor Ostadabbas is a co-founder of NeuroSense Diagnostics and directs the Augmented Cognition Laboratory (ACLab). She will bring her expertise in infant facial landmark tracking to this innovation with assistance from Dr. Wan, a Senior Computational Scientist at the Roux Institute.

ABOUT PROFESSOR AMIJI’S LAB

The Laboratory for Biomaterials and Advanced Nano-Delivery Systems (BANDS) focuses on research at the interface of medicine and material science to solve important biomedical problems. Our group is interested in the development of novel delivery technologies for drugs and genes to different target sites in the body, including gastro-intestinal tract, brain, and specific cells such the tumor and immune cells. The main focus of the lab is to ensure that the delivery technologies are clinically and commercially translatable.

ABOUT THIS RESEARCH

With the overwhelming success of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, there is an increased interest in the development of nucleic acid delivery technologies for therapeutics and vaccines. Oral administration is the most convenient and patient-friendly route of drug and vaccine administration in the body. The multi-compartmental polymeric (MCP) formulations provide a platform for oral administration of nucleic acid molecules, such as mRNA, into the body. This work will enable MCP formulations to be developed for specific target therapeutic or vaccination areas and to commercialize the technology through effective partnerships.

Project Leadership

Mansoor Amiji, PhD: University Distinguished Professor, Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, & Professor of Chemical Engineering at Northeastern University. Professor Amiji has over 30 years of experience in pharmaceutical formulation development and his lab at Northeastern University has made significant advances in the development of target specific drug and gene delivery systems.

About Professor Hashmi’s Lab

The Hashmi Complex Fluids Lab studies the flow of soft materials through small spaces. We are interested in how phenomena like droplet deformation, particle softness and polymer gelation affect the ability of fluids to travel through pore spaces, thus improving our understanding of flows in disparate contexts from biomedicine to industry and the environment. In biomedical contexts, the impact of material softness on flow has implications for and also can indicate a variety of disease states from pre-diabetes to metastatic cancer.

ABOUT THIS RESEARCH

While we mainly investigate how material softness determines complex fluid flow, in this project we turn this idea on its head: we measure flow to quantify both droplet surface tension and particle softness. Our in-situ, in-line technology will help increase stability and high-throughput efficiency in a variety of microfluidic platforms that use droplet and particle encapsulation for drug discovery, pharmaceutical development, and other applications. We will work with advisors from the microfluidics industry to ensure maximum impact of our innovation.

Project Leadership

Sara M. Hashmi, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, with affiliations with the Departments of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering and Chemistry and Chemical Biology. She brings her expertise in microfluidics, optical microscopy, materials characterization and theoretical modeling to this project. Two fourth year graduate students in the Hashmi Complex Fluids Lab, Barrett Smith and Sabrina Marnoto, will contribute to various aspects of this project from designing control materials to validating and extending the technology to broader contexts.

ABOUT The Translational Vision Science Lab

The lab’s focus is to study the developmental and aging human visual system both to enhance the fundamental understanding of human visual perception and cognition and also to improve diagnostic and treatment regimes for visual disorders in clinical populations. These clinical applications have the potential to be useful beyond specific research applications and thus our lab aims to translate the insights gained during the research into useful and impactful patents and products.

ABOUT THIS RESEARCH

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of visual impairment worldwide as it causes blind spots that progressively diminishes the central visual field that is used to see details of the world such as reading this text and recognising faces. Current treatments for AMD aim to slow or stop the progression of the disease as there is currently no cure. Therefore, early detection of the disease and monitoring its progression during treatment are critical.
Clinical diagnostics suffer a number of problems: A patient needs to attend a clinic, needs to see a trained clinician who can administer tests that are cumbersome, time-consuming, and unable to detect subtle, small changes of vision due to disease progression or treatment intervention.
The current project will use computer-based, rapid, self-administered vision diagnostics that probe multiple visual functions before and during AMD treatment, and will conduct those tests remotely.

PROJECT LEADERSHIP

Prof. Bex, Ph.D., is the head of the translational vision science lab. His research investigates the developmental and aging human visual system using quantitative approaches. Prof. Bex has worked on the diagnosis and rehabilitation of AMD and developed together with Dr. Skerswetat the methods deployed during this project. He will be advisor for data analysis and scientific communication.

Dr. Skerswetat is a trained optometrist by background (M.Sc.) and has working experience with AMD patients both clinically as well as during research projects conducted in Prof. Bex’s lab. He is also a trained researcher with a Ph.D. in vision science and developed together with Prof. Bex a novel vision diagnostics platform since he started his postdoctoral research in the fall of 2019. He will take the lead of the research project.

ABOUT PROFESSOR MAKRIS’ LAB

The Laboratory for Ocean Acoustics and Ecosystem Sensing led by Prof. Purnima Ratilal-Makris leads research, design, and development of acoustic based sensor technologies for instantaneous wide area ocean sensing, including rapid detection, localization and classification. The lab focuses on developing mobile, towable large-aperture densely-populated coherent hydrophone array systems including both sensor hardware and real-time array data analysis and processing software for enabling rapid scientific discoveries at sea. The lab is designing a compact version of the array to be used commercially for general purpose sensing on smaller vessels making the array technology accessible to wide range of ocean users.

ABOUT THIS RESEARCH

Underwater linear towed coherent hydrophone arrays are multifaceted and extremely versatile leading to a multitude of applications requiring ocean environmental awareness, including commercial and recreational, academic research and conservation, as well as maritime security. This hydrophone array technology developed at NU has large sensing frequency range from ~10 Hz (fin whale calls) to ~ 50,000 Hz (dolphin clicks), with lower frequencies capable of sensing wide areas ~100 km in diameter from array. The compact version of the array will contain 96 or 128 hydrophones compared to the full array system built in Prof. Ratilal-Makris’ lab comprising of 160 elements. This will lead to a version of the array that can be readily moved by personnel without the use of machinery.

PROJECT LEADERSHIP

• Purnima Makris, PhD will lead the overall project, technical vision, and customer relations
• Max Radermacher, PhD candidate will lead the ADC research and development
• Matthew Schinault, PhD candidate will lead the compact winch development
• Hamed Mohebbi-Kalkhoran, PhD will lead enhancements to real-time software acquisition and GUI development
• Sai Geetha Seri, PhD candidate will continue to make advancements to data protocols to improve packet error rates.

ABOUT PROF. MOGHADDAM, PROF. MARION, AND PROF. CIUCCARELLI

Prof. Moghaddam’s lab is developing new AI technologies that aim at augmenting early-stage product design decisions by eliciting latent user needs from online reviews through natural language processing and recommending novel and user-centered concepts to designers through generative design. Prof. Marion’s research is focused on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the innovation process using new digital tools. Prof. Ciuccarelli’s research focuses on the design transformations that help make sense of data and information to improve decision making processes.

ABOUT THIS RESEARCH

This Spark Fund project envisions an end-to-end AI-powered SaaS platform integrated in the value chain from assessing user needs through design generation and evaluation of novel concepts. This will allow designers to ‘fine tune’ desired attributes and innovativeness level, making it appealing to a wide range of industry verticals, from consumer products to software design. As co-founders of a startup Advanced Design Augmentation (ADA) Technologies, LLC, the PIs strive to foster designer-AI co-creation and innovation centered on empathy with users and bias mitigation, to bridge the gap between user need discovery, social impact, and design. The team is actively developing a first generation of the platform to be tested with initial industry partners in Fall 2022.

PROJECT LEADERSHIP

Mohsen Moghaddam is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, and an Affiliated Faculty with Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University. His primary roles in this project include leading the design, development, and validation of the AI models and algorithms for large-scale need finding, concept evaluation, and generative design. Tucker Marion is an Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at D’Amore-McKim School of Business and the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Northeastern University. His primary roles are the tactical and strategic development of commercial solutions of the technologies. This includes managing prototype development, resources, and industry collaborations. Paolo Ciuccarelli is a Professor and Director of Center for Design at the College of Arts Media and Design at Northeastern University. His primary roles involve testing and validation of the developed AI technologies through laboratory experiments involving novice and expert designers.