LAB NEWS ARCHIVE
Congratulations to Dr. Jennifer Malik for accepting her new position at Battelle
Congratulations to Dr. Jennifer Malik for accepting her new position at Battelle. Dr. Malik has been a post-doctoral researcher with Dr. Zhao's team and has been responsible for leading numerous projects, which has lead to several publications during her time with the lab. We wish her the best of luck with her new position at Battelle.
2021 AChemS Meeting
Congratulations to Kanghyun Kim and Dr. Zhenxing Wu for their abstract oral presentation acceptance at 2021 AChemS. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the AChemS meeting will be held virtually, and the oral presentations will be available as VODs on the conference page.
RELIEVE NASAL OBSTRUCTION SYMPTOMS THROUGH MODULATION OF AIRFLOW VIA A NOVEL NASAL AID
Kanghyun Kim, Zhenxing Wu, Alexander A. Farag, Bradley A. Otto, Kai Zhao. The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA
A POROUS MEDIUM MODEL OF FILIFORM PAPILLAE STRUCTURE AND DEFORMATION TO PREDICT ORAL MECHANOSENSITIVITY TO VISCOUS SOLUTIONS
Zhenxing Wu1, Brittany L. Miles2, Kelly S. Kennedy3, Christopher T. Simons2, Kai Zhao1. 1Department of Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA 2Department of Food Science & Technology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA 3Division of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery and Dental Anesthesiology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA
For more information on the meeting, please see link
2021 COSM - ARS Meeting
Congratulations to Kanghyun Kim for his abstract poster presentation acceptance at 2021 COSM - ARS. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the ARS meeting will be held virtually, and the poster and oral presentations will be available as VODs on the conference page.
3D PRINTING AS A PLANNING TOOL TO OPTIMIZE POST-SURGICAL SINONASAL SINUS IRRIGATION
Kanghyun Kim, Bradley A. Otto, Alexander A. Farag, Kai Zhao. The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA
For more information on the meeting, please see link
https://www.american-rhinologic.org/2021-cosm-virtual-meeting
Using candy to sniff out probable cases of COVID-19
Scientists have proposed that using a cheap and simple product – hard candy – to screen for the loss of taste and smell in populations at risk for COVID-19 exposure may help detect probable positive cases in otherwise asymptomatic people.
The Ohio State University research team received $305,000 in National Institutes of Health funding in a competitive bid to develop easy-to-deploy strategies that can identify people who are potentially infected with SARS-CoV-2.
While symptoms like fever, chills, a cough and body aches vary widely among COVID-19 patients, an estimated 86% of people who test positive report a loss of smell, “which makes it a much better predictor, especially if it’s sudden loss,” said project co-leader Christopher Simons, associate professor of food science and technology at Ohio State.
Eight flavors of hard candies that are uniform in color will be manufactured for the test of the method’s effectiveness. Asking people to identify flavors by smelling and tasting the candies allows for sophisticated assessment of the function of two routes – via the nose and the back of the throat – by which our sense of smell helps tell us what we’re eating, Simons said.
Plus, the sweet treat is hard to resist as a scientific screening tool.
“Who doesn’t like candy? It’s an ideal stimulus because for this to work, people have to want to do it,” he said.
Simons’ lab in the College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences focuses on understanding the neural and physiological underpinnings of how we perceive food. The research team also includes taste biologist Susan Travers, professor of biosciences in the College of Dentistry, and Kai Zhao, associate professor of otolaryngology in the College of Medicine, who specializes in olfaction – the sense of smell. The new funding is a competitive revision to one of Travers’ existing NIH grants.
For more information, please see link
https://news.osu.edu/using-candy-to-sniff-out-probable-cases-of-covid-19/
What happens when food first touches your tongue
A new study might explain why humans register some tastes more quickly than others, potentially due to each flavor’s molecular size.
The research, published last month in the journal PLOS Computational Biology, also provided explanation as to why humans register taste more quickly when food or drink moves over their tongues quickly, as compared to when they are held in their mouth steadily.
The findings indicate that both the speed with which food and drink move in our mouth and the size of the molecules in the food that we consume affect our ability to taste.
“Our tongue has papillae on it that act like a sea of kelp in an ocean,” said Kai Zhao, lead author of the paper and an associate professor of otolaryngology at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. “Those papillae – the small bumps that contain taste buds on the human tongue – move and sway as food or drink flow past them.”
Zhenxing Wu, a postdoctoral scholar in otolaryngology at Ohio State, co-authored this paper.
For more information, please see link
https://news.osu.edu/what-happens-when-food-first-touches-your-tongue/
Accelerator Award Grant Selection for Non-Invasive Nasal Aid to Relieve Nasal Obstruction Sensation Project
Congratulations to Dr. Zhao and the team for the Accelerator Award proposal acceptance for the 2020-2021 period! Dr. Zhao and his team will engage in a collaborative effort between the OSU Eye and Ear Institute, Nationwide Children's Hospital, and the OSU CDME for the development and small scale manufacturing of a non-invasive nasal aid for the nasal obstruction relief for the purpose of clinical testing.The project will be funded with a $148,823.32 grant over the period of one year.
2020 ARS Meeting at COSM
Congratulations to Barak, Zhenxing, and Jenn for their abstract oral presentation acceptance at COSM 2020. Dr. Zhao and his team will be traveling to Atlanta in April over a 2-day conference.
For more information on the meeting, please see link
Turning University Research into Commercial Products
I-Corps@Ohio, an initiative of the Ohio Department of Higher Education, is a statewide program that helps faculty and graduate students from Ohio universities and colleges determine the market potential of their technologies and assists with the launch of startup companies.
“Our goal is to change the mindset of university researchers and students so that they begin to see the value of their research in terms of commercial opportunities,” said Norman Chagnon, program director of I-Corps@Ohio.
“For the people of Ohio, this can translate into growth and economic development all across the state.”
Participants from Ohio State agreed that the program did indeed change their mindset.
“Going through the I-Corps process forced us to think about a lot of issues that we don’t normally think about as researchers,” said Kai Zhao, associate professor of otolaryngology and principal investigator for the “Breathe Better” team working on the nasal aid.
The aid helps redirect airflow in the nose, which improves breathing sensation for some people with nasal airway problems.
For more information, please see link
https://news.osu.edu/turning-university-research-into-commercial-products/
Congratulations to Dr. Wu for the AChemS 2019 Polak Award
Congratulations to Dr. Zhenxing Wu for being awarded the AChemS 2019 Polak Young Investigator Award! Dr. Wu is a post-doctoral fellow on Dr. Zhao's team.
For more information on the meeting, please see link
Congratulations to Jillian Krebs for Acceptance into Case Western Reserve Medical School
Congratulations to Jillian Krebs for her acceptance into the Case Western Reserve Medical School. Jillian has been a senior undergraduate researcher on Dr. Zhao's team and has been crucial to the success of multiple projects during her time in the lab. We wish her the best of luck as she transitions into medical school.
New Procedure to Improve Nasal Airflow Aims to Help Patients Breathe Easy
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Researchers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center are exploring how small changes in the nasal cavity impact airflow and quality of life.
As part of a clinical trial, doctors use a new, non-invasive approach to reshape nasal tissue. The Vivaer Nasal Airway Remodeling device delivers radiofrequency energy to the nasal valve area to treat nasal obstruction, a condition that impacts millions of Americans.
“What this technology does is reshape the internal nasal valve region, which is a region where cartilage on the side of your nose meets your septum,” said Dr. Brad Otto, assistant professor of otolaryngology at Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center. “Basically what it causes the cartilage to do is barely denature and change its shape just a little bit in order to open up that valve and improve airflow to that region.”
For more information, please see link
When these flies want to sniff out food and mates, they wing it
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Fruit flies don't appear to use their tiny, translucent wings for optimal flight, as one might expect. The speedy appendages seem to be doing double duty, helping the insect sniff out food, mates and other important scents, according to new research published in Nature Communication, from The Ohio State University.
For more information, please see link
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180813120734.htm
Congratulations to Dr. Li for the AChemS 2017 Polak Award
Congratulations to Dr. Chengyu Li for being awarded the AChemS 2017 Polak Young Investigator Award! Dr. Li is a post-doctoral fellow on Dr. Zhao's team.
For more information on the meeting, please see link