Awardees

SANDI supports neurodiverse individuals, particularly those on the autism spectrum, in achieving driving independence by addressing barriers like anxiety and sensory overload through structured, repetitive learning. This innovative simulator enhances confidence, provides greater accessibility to driving skills, and promotes long-term social and economic inclusion.

This initiative aims to transform the hospital waiting room experience by providing patients with a curated playlist of stories, offering comfort and connection during a typically isolating and stressful time. The project will develop a user-friendly digital platform to deliver these stories and potentially allow patients to contribute their own, with plans for wider implementation across hospitals.

The team is developing an automated, text-based platform with customizable persona-agents to simulate social interactions, enabling research on how conversations influence beliefs, disinformation, and radicalization in chat-based environments.

This technology will use the bacterial hydrophilin DtpA to enhance the stability and viability of probiotics and enzymes under extreme conditions, improving strain diversity, bacterial recovery, and enzyme protection for microbiome-based therapeutics.

The team is developing Tamm polariton multi-frequency thermal emitters and filters for enhanced gas sensing, with applications in semiconductor monitoring and healthcare, such as breath analysis for early disease detection, based on AI-driven design from the Caldwell Lab at Vanderbilt.

The team will create a patient-centered, AI-powered chatbot to explain APOL1 genetic test results, guide kidney health behaviors, and reduce anxiety, addressing the national shortage of genetic counselors and improving the communication of genetic test results for kidney disease risk.

The team aims to create a portable extracorporeal life support system that integrates a blood pump, oxygenator, and user interface, enabling ambulatory ECMO use to improve patient mobilization and outcomes, particularly for those awaiting lung transplants.

The team is advancing a portable Dynamic Organ Storage System (DOSS) for organ transports. This system maintains and monitors a uniform organ temperature and ensures a steady supply of essential energy substrates, thus preventing cellular damage and temperature gradients.

The team aims to develop a molecule that inhibits bacterial movement during UTI infection, thus preventing bacteria from escaping antibiotics and forming recurrent infections. This strategy could significantly reduce recurrent, resistant infections, particularly in UTIs.

The TissueAb team seeks to enhance the technology that employs phage display libraries to identify tissues or cell type-specific antibodies (Ab) for targeted therapies. This technology will broadly apply to immune-oncology, autoimmunity, rare, and infectious diseases.

The team seeks to address the societal imperative of literacy by developing a technology that will facilitate dialogue reading between caregivers and young children. These interventions involve encouraging children to engage in conversations around books, rather than just passively listening.

The iTELL framework restructures text-based learning materials into individual web apps where students can read text content, participate in interactive exercises, and watch educational videos. 

DAGCAP aims to create a streamlined and automated curation system that mitigates challenges associated with medical charting. Increases in the quality of curation would drastically expand research, clinical, and operational capabilities across oncology care and research.

This injectable gelatin-based hydrogel promotes the growth of large blood vessels in a spatially controlled manner to restore blood flow to inadequately supplied areas. Because this hydrogel is formulated without encapsulated growth factors or cells, it can be easily translated to clinical applications.