3 Hopkins teams receive grants from Bisciotti Foundation Translational Fund

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Three Johns Hopkins professors and a Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine fellow have received grants for their research through the Bisciotti Foundation Translational Fund.

Established with a multiyear gift from the Stephen and Renee Bisciotti Foundation, the fund provides $300,000 annually in seed money to advance Johns Hopkins discoveries on a commercial path. Recipients are awarded between $25,000 and $100,000 to conduct their work during a period of up to nine months.

Receiving grants are Therese Canares, assistant professor of pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Mathias Unberath, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at the Whiting School of Engineering; Clifford Weiss, professor of radiology, radiological science and biomedical engineering at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; and Ethan Tumarkin, advanced echocardiography and imaging fellow, Johns Hopkins Heart and Vascular Institute.

For this year’s funding round, 14 applications were submitted. Five finalists presented their work in late January to an outside panel of researchers, scientists and investors.

Each applicant has made a report of invention to Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures (JHTV). Applications for another translational fund, the Louis B. Thalheimer Fund for Translational Research, are due April 1.

Canares and Unberath were awarded for their project, “Transforming Acute Care Telehealth with A Novel AI-Driven Strep Throat Screening System Using Smartphone Video,” which is trying to develop software that can diagnose strep throat based on a cellphone photo.

Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures is working with the inventors to patent the technology. Canares and Unberath plan to use the funding to enhance the accuracy of their machine-learning algorithm and develop a prototype of the patient-user interface. Canares would like to form a startup to provide a platform for mobile, artificial intelligence-driven medical diagnoses for common childhood illnesses.

Tumarkin’s project, “Trans-Nasal Esophageal Echocardiography,” looks to develop an ultrasound of the heart that does not require anesthesia.

Tumarkin and David Armstrong, a clinical cardiovascular fellow at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, want to insert the probe through the nose, negating the use of anesthesia while increasing the procedure’s availability and decreasing the cost. Additionally, patients could go home immediately after the procedure.

Tumarkin and Armstrong have performed proof-of-concept experiments and developed several prototypes. Funding will go toward further prototype development as well as purchasing standard TEE probes for comparison testing. JHTV is pursuing patent protection for the technology.

Weiss’ project, “Novel Gastrojejunostomy Feeding Tube for Rapid Bedside Exchanges,” is a feeding tube that can be replaced at home instead of at a hospital.

Weiss, working with radiology colleague Christopher Bailey and medical student and biomedical engineer Aryaman Gupta, developed a device with a durable outer sheath and replaceable inner feeding tube that can be swapped out at a patient’s bedside or at their doctor’s office without anesthesia, meaning food and medication delivery can restart immediately.

Weiss, medical director for the Johns Hopkins Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design, estimates the technology would cut hospital visits for feeding tube repairs in half and free up nine weeks of a physician’s time each year to perform other procedures.

JHTV is working with Weiss on finding potential licensors for the technology. The Bisciotti Fund grant will go toward developing a prototype and validating the technology, as well as starting on the path to device approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.