Hariri Institute Faculty Affililates Awarded CTSI Pilot Grant Awards

By Maureen Stanton

Boston University Clinical and Translational Institute (CTSI) announced its 2024 Integrated Pilot Award winners, which included six faculty affiliated with Hariri Institute. Ten projects were awarded this year, two of which will be led by affiliates Tom Ranzani , assistant professor, engineering (ME, MSE, BME) and Sheila Russo, assistant professor, engineering (ME, MSE). Affiliates Anand Devaiah, MD;  William G. Adams, MD; Heather Hsu, MD, MPH; Helen E. Jenkins, PhD, MSC, BSC, also are on project teams.

The CTSI Pilot Grant Program provides funding to help BU investigators develop and deploy new tools, methods, and processes to explore and solve major challenges in clinical and translational science.

Congratulations to Hariri Institute Faculty and all award recipients!

Project: A Soft Robotic Catheter for Percutaneous Management of Non-compressible Torso Hemorrhage
The researchers will develop a novel device that uses robotic technology to automate hemorrhage control processes.  Designed for clinical situations where compression cannot be applied to stop bleeding, the easy-to-use approach is safer than alternative methods and is designed to stabilize a non-compressible torso hemorrhage without completely cutting off blood flow to the lower extremities. Check Professor Ranzani’s research website here for an upcoming paper related to this work.
PI: Tom Ranzani, PhD (affiliate)
CoPI: Jeffrey Siracuse, MD, MBA

Project: A Soft-foldable Robotic Retractor with Integrated Pressure Sensing to Reduce Tissue Trauma in Neurosurgery and Skull Base Surgery
The researchers will create soft robotic innovations and systems to facilitate non-invasive neurosurgical operations. They will design, develop and evaluate a soft robotic neurosurgical retractor to create workspace in the brain. The retractor will use pneumatically-driven, origami-inspired actuators to create the workspace and will monitor robot/tissue interactions. View related work here.
PI: Sheila Russo, PhD (affiliate)
CoPIs: Hariri Faculty Affiliates Anand Devaiah, MD, with Urvashi Upadhyay, MD

Project: Validity, Acceptability, and Utility of Electronic Health Record Household Linking
The researchers will evaluate the effectiveness of household linkage tools, focusing on a key disease that clusters within families: latent tuberculosis infection. They will interview patients about their household membership and cross-reference patient descriptions of household composition with household membership obtained through electronic health record (EHR) linking.
PI: Jeffrey Campbell, MD, MPH
CoPIs: Hariri Faculty Affiliates William G. Adams, MD, Heather Hsu, MD, MPH, and Helen E. Jenkins, PhD, MSC, BSC with Karen Jacobson, MD, MPH, Jessica Haberer, MD, MS

Read about other 2024 CTSI Integrated Pilot Award recipients on the CTSI website.