S. Abdollah Mirbozorgi, Ph.D., assistant professor of electrical and Computer engineeringS. Abdollah Mirbozorgi, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, recently received federal grants for two projects that could be transformative for millions of patients.
One project will develop an implantable device to explore the possibility of diabetes reversal, while the other seeks to develop an AI-assisted version of a centuries-old device — the pacifier.
Mirbozorgi was awarded a $1.2 million grant from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health of the National Institutes of Health to develop an implant that will study how diabetes develops and potentially reverse it.
A separate project, funded $1.2 million by the NIH’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, will focus on the development of a “smart pacifier” that could transform how clinicians monitor infant breathing and vital signs.
Tackling diabetes through neuroengineering
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 38 million individuals in the United States were living with diabetes in 2021.
While there are several pharmaceutical options to treat and control diabetes, Mirbozorgi is proposing a neurological approach by implanting a device that will map diabetes-related nerve activity in the brain.
“This non-pharmaceutical approach will provide us with new information about the disease, and it will allow us to use targeted vagus-nerve stimulation to advance reversal strategies,” Mirbozorgi said. “The results of these efforts will inform future treatments for diabetes and potentially other metabolic diseases as well.”
The implant Mirbozorgi’s team is developing will feature an application-specific integrated circuit that records nerve signals between the brain and the stomach and pancreas, analyzes those signals with on-implant AI, and delivers stimulation in a closed-loop system.
Mirbozorgi is the principal investigator on this four-year project, which is a collaboration between UAB and Purdue University. Co-investigator from Purdue is Miad Faezipour, Ph.D. Co-investigators from UAB include Amy Warriner, M.D., Ananda Basu, M.D., Rita Basu, M.D., and Benjamin Larimer, Ph.D.
Perfecting the pacifier
A multidisciplinary team that includes Mirbozorgi and researchers from Purdue University and UAB is looking to take the common pacifier and turn it into a high-tech device that holds the ability to assess an infant’s cardiopulmonary function.
“Respiratory diseases are a leading cause of infant hospitalization, with hundreds of thousands of newborns admitted each year for breathing complications,” Mirbozorgi said. “Many current monitoring tools are not designed for fragile newborns, leaving a major gap in respiratory monitoring and care.”
This project aims to close that gap with a first-of-its-kind pacifier that uses sound-sensing technology and artificial intelligence to track babies’ breathing in real time, safely and noninvasively. The device’s multimodal, active sound-sensing mechanism emits acoustic stimuli and analyzes intraoral sound reflections to assess cardiopulmonary function.
Purdue University leads this four-year R01, with Miad Faezipour, Ph.D., as principal investigator. Other co-investigators at Purdue include Smriti Bhatt, Ph.D.
Mirbozorgi serves as a co-investigator and UAB site PI. Additional UAB co-investigators include Namasivayam Ambalavanan, M.D., and Colm P. Travers, M.D., neonatologists at the UAB Heersink School of Medicine.