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For the third consecutive year, ������ɫ faculty have generous donor support to accelerate their research and advance closer to making breakthroughs that have real-world impact. The three teams that received seed grants from The S. H. Ho Foundation Ltd. this year are:

Nancy Guo (School of Computing), Yiming Zeng (School of Computing), Yizeng Li (biomedical engineering), and Ying Wang (biomedical engineering), who received a $100,000 grant to develop “A Novel Quantum-Accelerated AI Framework for Discovering Actionable Biomarkers and Drugs with Validation Using Body-on-a-Chip.”

Li described the research as “physics-based mathematical modeling to predict cancer cell viability and metastatic potential.”

From Guo: “We are building an AI system that can mimic how lung cancer tumors behave in the body. This will help us understand three key things: One, why some tumors become more aggressive and spread; two, which drugs might be able to stop them; and three, what features of those drugs make them more effective.

“To make this process faster and more accurate, we use advanced quantum computing methods to run the simulations. We then test our findings using a ‘body-on-a-chip,’ a small lab device that recreates how human tissues function, to see if the results hold up in a realistic biological setting.”

Wang added: “My lab will create miniature organ systems on a chip using human cells to mimic how lung cancer spreads between organs. These chips will allow us to safely test whether the biomarkers identified by our computational models can track disease progression and whether the proposed drugs can prevent or slow that spread. In simple terms, my group will help verify that the findings from our computational models are supported by biological experiments.”

Jian Zhou and Ronald Miles (both mechanical engineering), who received a grant of more than $98,000 to advance their “Ear Canal Micro-Optomechanical Acoustic Particle Velocity Probe” project.

“The Ho Foundation grant will support our research on developing a new hearing measurement tool that can detect extremely faint sounds generated by the ear,” Zhou said. “By capturing these subtle signals more accurately, we aim to enable earlier detection of hearing problems and make hearing tests more reliable.”

Current otoacoustic emission (OAE) measurement methods rely on pressure microphones and face challenges, including low OAE levels, interference from ear canal reflections, and microphone noise, the researchers said. These limitations require complex calibrations, significantly reduce repeatability, and compromise accuracy, limiting effectiveness in clinical and research settings.

This project is expected to lead to a next-generation velocity/pressure dual-sensing ear canal probe, they said. This transformative tool will improve the repeatability and reliability of acoustic measurements, simplify the process, and enable new auditory discoveries in clinics and research.

In addition, support for this research will bridge the gap toward developing a velocity sensor prototype, strengthening future submissions to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and offering significant potential for commercial applications and enhanced student training.

Laura Cook (biological sciences), Jacob Palmer (biological sciences), and Tracy Hookway (biomedical engineering), who received over $99,000 to dive deeper into “Engineering Synthetic Vaginal Microbiomes and a Vagina-on-a-Chip Platform for Host–Microbiome Interaction Studies.”

“The vagina contains a community of helpful bacteria that are very important for women’s health, but we don’t yet have good ways to study how these bacteria behave and interact with each other and with the body,” Cook said. “This project aims to create two new tools: First, lab-grown versions of the most common vaginal bacterial communities so we can see how they grow and affect each other, and second, a device that better mimics real vaginal tissue.

“By combining these tools, we can see how individual species grow and impact each other. This will help us better understand what keeps the vaginal environment healthy and how to develop new treatments.”

This work has the potential to significantly improve women’s health, the researchers said.

������ɫ the donors

In August 2023, the University announced The S. H. Ho Foundation Ltd. made a $5.6 million gift to advance current or emerging faculty research at the intersection of health sciences and technology.

Martha Ho, MA ’78, and her husband, David, of the Ho Foundation were inspired by her outstanding educational experience at ������ɫ and the opportunity to nurture groundbreaking faculty discoveries and innovation.

The endowment gift provides vital seed grants of up to $100,000 each for faculty research teams University-wide. They are selected based on an application process.