CIMIT Announces More 2011 Innovation Grants

Funding planned for eight collaborations of engineers and clinicians

Projects targeting cardiac arrhythmias, brain injuries, spinal cord injury, and innovations in healthcare delivery systems will be awarded up to $100,000 each in CIMIT Innovation Grants during 2011. Earlier this year, CIMIT announced the selection of 30 projects to receive funding and facilitation awards.  In all, nearly $4 million will be distributed through this grant program in the upcoming year.

A variety of early-stage, healthcare technology innovation projects in neurohealth, traumatic stress disorders, and integrated clinical environments were among those chosen to receive this round of funding.  The grants will support the development of innovative medical devices or clinical systems.

CIMIT provides seed funding for investigators whose research may be considered too embryonic or high risk by traditional sources.  Grants are awarded to collaborations of engineers and clinicians who are seeking technology-based solutions to important clinical problems.

A key goal of the CIMIT grant program is to accelerate medical innovation, improve the quality and safety of patient care, improve access in a patient centric way, and integrate technology-based solutions that have the potential to lower the cost of healthcare delivery.

The eight new awards include collaborations led by the following Principal Investigators:

• Antonis Armoundas, PhD, MGH, Advanced Pacing Methods for Preventing Life Threatening Arrhythmias, Cardiovascular Disease

• N. Stuart Harris, MD, MGH, Novel Neuroimaging in Acute Mountain Sickness, New Initiatives

• Elizabeth Hoge, MD, MGH, The Effect of Oxytocin on Fear Memory Consolidation: A Novel Intervention to Prevent PTSD, Traumatic Stress Disorders

• David Judge, MD, MGH, Implementation of a Hypertension Remote Monitoring Toolkit in a Primary Care Team-Based Practice, Clinical Systems Innovation

• John Guttag, PhD, MIT, A Novel Algorithm to Detect the End of a Seizure and the Post-Seizure Period, Neurotechnology

• Martha Shenton, PhD, BWH, Improving Imaging of Diffuse Axonal Injury in Traumatic Brain Injury, Traumatic Brain Injury and Neurotrauma

• Yang (Ted) Teng, MD, PhD, BWH, Carbon monoxide mediated neural protection for treating spinal cord injury, Inhalation Technology

• Yang (Ted) Teng, MD, PhD, BWH, Treatment of Spinal Cord Injury Pain with Huperzine A: A Pre-clinical Study, Traumatic Brain Injury and Neurotrauma

About CIMIT

CIMIT is the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology. A ten-year-old non-profit consortium of Boston-area teaching hospitals and engineering schools, CIMIT provides innovators with resources to explore, develop and implement novel technological solutions for today’s most urgent healthcare problems. Participants in the consortium are Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston Medical Center, Boston University, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Children’s Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Newton-Wellesley Hospital, Partners HealthCare and VA Boston Healthcare System.