{"id":228548,"date":"2025-04-17T11:40:35","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T15:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=228548"},"modified":"2025-04-17T11:50:33","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T15:50:33","slug":"nursing-and-engineering-innovation-forum-highlights-interdisciplinary-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2025\/04\/nursing-and-engineering-innovation-forum-highlights-interdisciplinary-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Nursing and Engineering Innovation Forum Highlights Interdisciplinary Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Harthik Parankusham \u201928 (CLAS) visited his grandfather recently, the signs of cognitive decline were obvious \u2013 the family patriarch forgot his own grandson\u2019s name.<\/p>\n

Worldwide, 55 million people have undiagnosed mild cognitive impairment, or MCI, with 7.4 million in the United States alone, Parankusham says, noting that the current means of diagnosing something like Alzheimer\u2019s disease \u2013 that is, MRIs, PET scans, and bloodwork \u2013 can be expensive and often come too late.<\/p>\n

That got the physiology and neurobiology major thinking and deep in research. Could there be a means of early detection?<\/p>\n

\"A
Leila Daneshmandi, left, and Tiffany Kelley, co-directors of the Nursing & Engineering Innovation Center, speak during Wednesday’s event (Sarah Redmond \/ UConn Photo).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Parankusham\u2019s Raayu Institute, comprising a national team of researchers, created a simple test for the linguistic biomarkers that show up years before other symptoms. It\u2019s a test that asks patients to simply write a story while a computer analyzes their grammar, word choice, and cadence for anomalies.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s make Alzheimer\u2019s and undiagnosed MCI a thing of the past,\u201d he told a panel of judges on Wednesday, April 16 during the InnovateHealth PitchFest at UConn\u2019s Innovation Partnership Building.<\/p>\n

His pitch earned him first place in the Innovation Idea category.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery single pitch we saw today – whether it affected millions and millions of lives or just one life – it made the world a better place,\u201d Michael McGuire, Beekley Medical director of strategic growth and innovations and one of the PitchFest judges, said. \u201cAn event like this today lets us know health care is in really good hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

From a portable test for tuberculosis from the team Clara Health to insoles with air chambers that adapt to an individual\u2019s foot from the team SoleShift, which respectively won second and third place in Innovation, the late afternoon event gave each team five minutes to sell their idea.<\/p>\n

But before attendees and a panel of judges settled in to hear from the students, they spent the day embracing possibility during the first part of the inaugural Nursing and Engineering Innovation Forum<\/a>, a product of UConn\u2019s Nursing & Engineering Innovation Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The center opened in 2023 and since then, has focused on research education, community engagement, and technology transfer, Tiffany Kelley, co-director and School of Nursing associate professor-in-residence, said. Its goal is to address health care challenges through new technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust one conversation can open the door,\u201d she said of the event that drew about 100 registrants from a mix of industry, corporate partnerships, and UConn alums.<\/p>\n

\"A
Those attending the event had opportunities to speak with students, faculty, and industry experts. (Coral Aponte \/ UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With Beekley Medical and VentureWell as sponsors, along with UConn\u2019s College of Engineering<\/a>, School of Nursing<\/a>, Provost\u2019s Office, Office of the Vice President for Research, and Innovation Partnership Building, the forum spotlighted researchers whose work has benefitted from Faculty Innovation Seed Grants and Faculty Senior Design Awards.<\/p>\n

Presenters talked about using artificial intelligence to assess patients\u2019 trust in their nurses and how AI can be used to fight pain and opioid dependence. They also detailed their work on humans\u2019 sucking reflex and the use of pulse oximetry.<\/p>\n

\u201cNurses have always been innovators. We can trace it back in our history,\u201d School of Nursing Dean Victoria Vaughan Dickson said, adding that, nonetheless, \u201cwe often don\u2019t see ourselves as innovators. We know the problems, we can think of some of the solutions \u2026 and by partnering with others who have other areas of expertise we can take those solutions into testing and into solving our problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

That spirit of teamwork was most evident during PitchFest, the Center\u2019s second time hosting<\/a> the event. Students came not just from majors like biomedical engineering and nursing, but also from elsewhere on campus, including places like digital media and design in the School of Fine Arts.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are talking, people are networking, it\u2019s hard to get them back in their seats,\u201d Leila Daneshmandi, Center co-director and assistant professor-in-residence in the College of Engineering\u2019s biomedical engineering department, said during a break in the presentations.<\/p>\n

When the time came, though, the audience hushed as the final five PitchFest teams, competing in the Prototype in Development category, took center stage.<\/p>\n

The team Zemi already has raised $65,000 for their line of smart clothing \u2013 tight-fitting shirts and leggings outfitted with sensors to track an individual\u2019s cardiac, skin, and muscular activity.<\/p>\n

Zemi\u2019s lab in Farmington, though, needs additional specialized equipment, especially since their clothing will be part of a National Institutes of Health research project through UConn.<\/p>\n

John Toribio \u201925 Ph.D. told the judges his project \u2013 conceived with Kyle Mahoney \u201920 (CAHNR), \u201922 MS, \u201925 Ph.D. \u2013 is better than common wearable trackers that rely on estimated metrics and don\u2019t detect medical events until well after the fact.<\/p>\n

\"A
The PitchFest winners impressed judges with their creativity and determination to solve real-world problems. (Coral Aponte \/ UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More electrodes, more data, he said.<\/p>\n

With applications in health care, competitive athletics, and in exercise science institutes, Zemi can make clothing for just about any application from sleeping hospital patients to high-performance athletes.<\/p>\n

Toribio\u2019s pitch earned the team first place in the Prototype category. The team ChromaShield, with its early warning patch for radiation dermatitis, took second place, and the team Dentopa and its solution for tooth sensitivity took third.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn event like PitchFest is so important because this really helps outline the future of health care,\u201d McGuire said. \u201cAt Beekley, one of our core values is that in everything we do we want to make the world a better place. \u2026 As innovators in the health care space that\u2019s ultimately our job and everyone in this room did it very well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNurses work on teams and this just really solidifies it,\u201d Dickson added. \u201cAll of these groups were teams, whether there was one person presenting or two \u2026 that\u2019s the core of nursing, being part of a team. And nurses lead teams, you saw here that nurses lead innovative teams.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daneshmandi noted that \u201cengineers bring a unique lens of problem-solving and system design that when paired with the clinical insight of nurses unlocks entirely new solutions to longstanding health challenges. This kind of interdisciplinary collaboration is what drives transformative innovation in health care, and we\u2019re working to foster this at the Center across students and faculty.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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