{"652274":{"#nid":"652274","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Yeo Receives NIH Trailblazer Award and R01 Grant","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently announced that\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.me.gatech.edu\/faculty\/yeo\u0022\u003EAssociate Professor W. Hong Yeo\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;from Georgia Tech\u0026#39;s George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering has been awarded a Trailblazer Award for New and Early Stage Investigators. The award is for a project titled \u0026ldquo;Development of Nanomembrane Electronics and Machine-Learning Algorithms for Quantitative Screening of Dysphagia Therapeutics\u0026rdquo; and comes with $645,000 in R21 funding over three years.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EDysphagia is a difficulty or discomfort in swallowing that afflicts almost 15 million Americans, particularly individuals 50-60 years or older. Currently, there is no available treatment for dysphagia. Although ongoing research focuses on the development of new drugs, none of the existing systems provides a quantitative, continuous evaluation of drug efficacy with animal models or human subjects. Yeo and his lab aim to develop a novel, nanomembrane electronic system that offers a continuous, quantitative assessment of swallowing activities in a non-invasive way with animal models, which will help develop new dysphagia drugs.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;We need better drugs for treating this disease,\u0026rdquo; said Yeo. \u0026ldquo;When you develop a drug, you need tools to test the efficacy, and that qualitative tool doesn\u0026rsquo;t exist for dysphagia. That\u0026rsquo;s why we proposed this non-invasive real-time continuous monitoring system for swallowing.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EYeo\u0026rsquo;s system is based on his previously developed low-cost printable wireless sensors and electronics, which can be affixed to a user with minimal or no discomfort.\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\nThe Trailblazer Award is an opportunity for NIH-defined New and Early Stage Investigators to pursue research programs of high interest to the NIBIB that integrate engineering and the physical sciences with the life and\/or biomedical sciences. A Trailblazer project may be exploratory, developmental, proof of concept, or high risk-high impact, and may be technology design-directed, discovery-driven, or hypothesis-driven. Importantly, applicants must propose research approaches for which there are minimal or no preliminary data.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\nIn addition to the award, Yeo also recently received an NIH R01 grant ($1.7 million) for a project titled \u0026ldquo;Deep Phenotyping in Blepharospasm,\u0026rdquo; which will be conducted with another PI, Dr. Hyder Jinnah, a professor in the Emory University School of Medicine. They will use a miniaturized wearable electronic system to wirelessly quantify different aspects of blepharospasm, such as increased blinking, eye spasms, and apraxia of eyelid opening.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently announced that Associate Professor W. Hong Yeo from Georgia Tech\u0027s George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering has been awarded a Trailblazer Award for New and Early Stage Investigators. "}],"uid":"35403","created_gmt":"2021-11-01 14:53:44","changed_gmt":"2021-11-01 14:53:44","author":"Carly Ralston","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2021-11-01T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2021-11-01T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"652273":{"id":"652273","type":"image","title":"Yeo Receives NIH Trailblazer Award and R01 Grant","body":null,"created":"1635778335","gmt_created":"2021-11-01 14:52:15","changed":"1635778335","gmt_changed":"2021-11-01 14:52:15","alt":"","file":{"fid":"247467","name":"Yeo_Table_Square_500.jpeg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/Yeo_Table_Square_500.jpeg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/Yeo_Table_Square_500.jpeg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":252082,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/Yeo_Table_Square_500.jpeg?itok=400uM8rt"}}},"media_ids":["652273"],"groups":[{"id":"1292","name":"Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB)"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"187423","name":"go-bio"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}