Daniel Rasetshwane Awarded Great Plains IDeA-CTR Scholars Grant
Friday, July 21, 2017
Daniel Rasetshwane, Ph.D., Director of the Auditory Signal Processing
Laboratory at Boys Town National Research Hospital, has been awarded the Great Plains Institutional Development Award for Clinical and Translational Research (IDeA-CTR) Scholars Program grant.
This program is administered through an National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) grant to the Great Plains IDeA-Clinical Translational Research (CTR) Network. The network is a collaborative effort between nine institutions in Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota and Kansas designed to reach medically underserved populations and transform health delivery and outcomes in the Great Plains region. Institutions in the network include University of Nebraska Medical Center, Boys Town National Research Hospital, University of Kansas Medical Center, North Dakota State University, University of North Dakota, University of South Dakota, University of Nebraska at Kearney, and University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
One of the primary goals of the program is to develop successful clinical and translational research (CTR) investigators. To achieve this goal, selected Scholars are provided with the protected time and seed grant funding to develop competitive CTR projects for submission to the NIH. The award provides partial salary support and up to $50,000 annually to support preliminary research efforts for up to four years. This competitive Request for Application ( RFA) received an overwhelming response in which four scholars were chosen.
Dr. Rasetshwane's project focuses on a physiologically-based and technically rigorous approach to treating hearing loss. Rasetshwane states, “Many people with hearing loss who could benefit from hearing aids choose not to use them because of limited benefit and poor sound quality. We have developed a fitting algorithm that utilizes categorical loudness scaling data and a signal-processing algorithm that restores suppression (referred to as the suppression hearing aid), and evaluation of both algorithms resulted in promising outcomes. Ultimately, we believe that work from our laboratory will lead to improved quality in hearing aids and patient satisfaction with their use."
To learn more about the Great Plains IDeA-CTR Network and our educational and funding opportunities, visit https://gpctr.unmc.edu or call our office at 402-552-2260.
