IEM News Release

Galvanizing Engineering in Medicine (GEM) “Sucksess” Story

01/27/2025

An interdisciplinary group of researchers from UC San Diego is achieving “sucksess” for newborns by identifying difficulty with nursing using AI algorithms and data from their non-nutritive suckling system. 

Bringing innovation to the bedside does not happen overnight. In 2021, the Institute of Engineering in Medicine was ecstatic to support Professor James Friend, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineer; Erin Walsh, Speech-Language Pathologist and Lactation Consultant; and Doctor Vanessa Scott, Pediatrician, for their interdisciplinary project proposal “Design of a non-nutritive suckling system for real-time characterization of suckling efficacy in neonates” with a GEM Award. 

The team noted that as of 2021 breastfeeding was widely recognized as one of the most beneficial practices for infants and mothers, offering numerous health, emotional, and economic advantages. A major contributor to establishing effective feeding practices relates to latch and milk transfer. An infant's suckling competence remained surprisingly subjective. Clinicians continued to routinely use a gloved finger in an infant's mouth to describe non-nutritive suckling. The vast variability among providers misleads families during critical days when lactation is established. Their technology using an off-the-shelf pacifier with an inexpensive disposable sensor provides real-time analysis of 8 suckling parameters and applies machine learning algorithms to detect anomalies. “The method we developed with our clinical partners replaces this subjective assessment with objective data,” said James Friend, a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Department of Surgery at UC San Diego and one of the paper’s senior authors.

By October of 2022, in part by the support GEM provided, the interdisciplinary team was able to patent their work. Now it was time to test their device. “The interdisciplinary collaboration was and is essential for this project to flourish. In 2023 and 2024 we published our work relaying the system design and a clinical study across 91 infants focusing on tongue tie anomalies.” noted co-senior author of the study, Erin Walsh, a speech-language pathologist and lactation consultant at UC San Diego Health.

The “sucksess” continues! This week Erin Walsh and her team were awarded the Accelerating Innovation to Market (AIM) award with their project “Low-cost Infant Suckling Diagnostics to Improve Breastfeeding Outcomes”.  The team hopes their system will help support parents struggling with breastfeeding and improve long-term health outcomes. To read more click here. 

Interdisciplinary Team

Phuong Truong and James Friend, Medically Advanced Devices Laboratory, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Jacobs School of Engineering and Department of Surgery, School of Medicine, University of California at San Diego
Erin Walsh, Center for Airway, Voice and Swallowing, Department of Otolaryngology, School of Medicine, University of California at San Diego
Vanessa P. Scott and Michelle Leff, Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, University of California at San Diego, San Diego
Alice Chen, UC San Diego School of Medicine, UC San Diego Health, Department of Family Medicine

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