Funded Projects

Explore our currently funded projects. You may search with all three fields, then focus your results by applying any of the dropdown filters. After customizing your search, you may download results and even save your specific search for later.

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Project # Project Title Research Focus Area Research Program Administering IC Institution(s) Investigator(s) Location(s) Year Awarded
R43DA056275-01
Digital Peer Support for Opioid Use Disorders: Scaling Chat Support Groups to meet Community Needs Cross-Cutting Research Small Business Programs NIDA Beacon Tech, Inc. COHEN, TRACEY Damascus, MD 2022
NOFO Title: HEAL Initiative: America’s Startups and Small Businesses Build Technologies to Stop the Opioid Crisis (R43/R44 - Clinical Trial Optional)
NOFO Number: RFA-DA-19-019
Summary:

Most people with opioid use disorder are either not in treatment or receive inconsistent treatment. Peer support is proven to be effective at engaging patients who are unwilling or unable to seek traditional treatment, but commonly available group support models are often separate from other clinical care or are otherwise hard for patients to access. This research will test a novel, machine learning enabled, digital peer support program added to an anonymous text-based social network that can provide 24/7 support for patients at all stages of recovery. The project will examine the ability of this digital service to engage and retain patients with opioid use disorder and will also develop novel techniques to automatically analyze patient messages for clinical and social determinants of health-related needs.
1R41DA048689-01
BEST-OUD: Behavioral Economic Screening Tool of Opioid Use Disorder for use in clinical practice Cross-Cutting Research Small Business Programs NIDA BEAM DIAGNOSTICS, INC SNIDER, SARAH EMILY Roanoke, VA 2019
NOFO Title: PHS 2018-02 Omnibus Solicitation of the NIH for Small Business Technology Transfer Grant Applications (Parent STTR [R41/R42] Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
NOFO Number: PA-18-575
Summary:

A critical line of defense against opioid use disorder (OUD), one of the nation’s leading preventable causes of death, must be standardized screening provided by the patient’s primary care physician, psychiatrist, and/or counselor. Standardized screening methods for opioids, however, are simply inferior and no gold standards exist. This project aims to develop a validated, theoretically guided tool that provides clinicians with information beyond OUD symptoms using reinforcer pathology, a measure of severity derived from the synergy between excessive delay discounting and high behavioral economic demand. The Behavioral Economic Screening Tool (BEST-OUD) will use these combined measures in a mobile tablet application to enable clinicians to screen for OUD.
2R44DA048689-02
Beacon-OUD: Behavioral Economic Screening Tool of Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) for Use in Clinical Practice Cross-Cutting Research Small Business Programs NIDA BEAM DIAGNOSTICS, INC. SNIDER, SARAH EMILY Roanoke, VA 2023
NOFO Title: PHS 2021-2 Omnibus Solicitation of the NIH, CDC and FDA for Small Business Innovation Research Grant Applications (Parent SBIR [R43/R44] Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
NOFO Number: PA-21-259
Summary:

Current clinical screening measures for opioid misuse are underused and susceptible to bias. This project will develop Beacon-OUD, a digital opioid misuse assessment. The tool generates an automated, standardized score, preventing potential judgements related to patient’s status and circumstances, limiting stigma. The research will further advance Beacon-OUD into a commercial product for use both as a stand-alone tool and as an electronic health record-integrated solution to encourage objective opioid misuse screening in large health care systems. 
1R43DA046974-01
IMPACT-Instrument to Measure Pain and Assess Correlation to Treatment. Create a smartphone pupillometry to objectively determine the presence of acute pain, evaluate opioid as the treatment for pain. Cross-Cutting Research Small Business Programs NIDA BENTEN TECHNOLOGIES, INC MA, TONY XUYEN Manassa, VA 2019
NOFO Title: Development of a Device to Objectively Measure Pain (R43/R44)
NOFO Number: RFA-DA-18-012
Summary:

While patient self-report of pain is the gold standard of pain measurement, this may not be feasible in critically ill patients who are sedated and intubated, unconscious, or unable to verbally communicate. Pupillary dilation (PD) is a reliable indicator of acute pain, and measurement of pupil size changes may be useful in determining the intensity of pain experienced as well as the efficacy of an analgesia. Research also demonstrates that pupillary unrest under ambient light (PUAL) is an objective marker of sensitivity to opioids, and facial expression analysis can help detect pain. Benten Technologies, Inc. aims to develop and validate IMPACT, a device that uses pupillometry with a proprietary algorithm to measure both PD and PUAL and conduct facial expression analysis using computer vision. The project team will then demonstrate the feasibility of IMPACT in helping clinicians objectively determine pain and assess opioid efficacy and compare results obtained to pain scores reported by patients.
1UG3NS130592-01A1
Sensory Phenotyping to Enhance Neuropathic Pain Drug Development Clinical Research in Pain Management Discovery and Validation of Biomarkers, Endpoints, and Signatures for Pain Conditions NINDS BETH ISRAEL DEACONESS MED CENT FREEMAN, ROY (contact); EDWARDS, ROBERT R; GEWANDTER, JENNIFER Boston, MA 2023
NOFO Title: HEAL Initiative: Discovery of Biomarkers and Biomarker Signatures to Facilitate Clinical Trials for Pain Therapeutics (UG3/UH3 Clinical Trial Optional)
NOFO Number: RFA-NS-22-050
Summary:

Neuropathic pain is a chronic and difficult to treat condition that affects people in different ways. This project aims to personalize treatments based on individual pain profiles. The research will develop an inexpensive test using a technique called quantitative sensory testing to predict how a patient will respond to two common pain medications. The research will also look for other factors in blood that enhance the accuracy of these predictions.