I-Corps Program Neomur

University Of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA

Investigators

Abstract

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is improved care for premature and at-risk infants, and consequently providing a cost savings to the healthcare system. Providing care for the at-risk neonates and those with developmental delays earlier will prevent negative avoidable outcomes and enable the growth of these fragile individuals to become the most that they can. The Neonur provides the ability to monitor the neurological status of the neonate using an oral feeding based developmental biomarker. The I-Corps Neonur project utilizes technology invented and patented at the University of Pennsylvania through three National Institutes of Health R01 grants. This technology has been used to benchmark the link between neonatal neurological development and the coordination of oral feeding skills. This skill set may sound simple but enables the infant to orally feed and simultaneously protect their airway, all while critically minimizing the caloric utilization to complete the task. Over 600 infants have been studied providing clear population level guidance. The technology subsequently has been used to study populations at risk due to maternal drug use, diabetes, and the correlation between bilirubin, and a clinical intervention. All of the studies to date have looked at the data from a research and population basis. This I-Corps project will enable us to understand how to translate this data into a useful clinical tool for the provider, and the parent. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.