What’s happening at Augusta University? Week of Feb. 28-March 6

This week includes: A walk to raise money for the Children’s Hospital of Georgia, an invention that turns a frown into a smile garners a state award and a grant to help researchers further their pursuit of answers.

Heart and Sole 5K to raise money for the Children’s Hospital of Georgia 

The 16th annual Heart and Sole 5K will be at 9 a.m. Saturday, March 5. The event will start and end at the Children’s Hospital of Georgia with all the proceeds going to Children’s. Fundraising through the event allows medical equipment to be updated, provide summer camps for children and more. Each year Children’s sees 90,000 children in its clinics and nearly 4,000 children are admitted to the hospital every year. Heart and Sole Inc. works directly with doctors, nurses and clinic staffs to make sure the children’s needs are met with the money raised each year.

Augusta University team wins state innovation award

A team of Augusta University innovators has won the Partnership for Inclusive Innovation’s Community Award. The award was for Happy Hands, a device that uses positive reinforcement to encourage good hand hygiene. The 2022 Community Award was themed around addressing the effects of COVID-19 in the local community and required joint effort between university researchers and the community. The design of the device was led by Lynsey Steinberg, a medical illustrator in the Center of Instructional Innovation, Dr. Andy Hauger, professor in the College of Science and Mathematics, and Bill Gray, manager of education technology in the College of Education. The project was also supported by Nitish Sood and Anish Sangari students at the Medical College of Georgia, and Srilatha Neshangi, infection prevention manager at Augusta University Health.

Public health professor awarded NIH grant to study high-performing research organizations

The National Institutes of Health awarded a $600,000 grant for the Biomedical Research Innovation Laboratory at Augusta University. Led by Dr. Andrew Balas, public health professor in the Department of Interdisciplinary Health Sciences in the College of Allied Health Sciences, the three-year project will compare various research strategies and learn from the best of them, which leads to new ways to grow. “Research is so vast nowadays that it’s becoming a legitimate subject of study. We need to find out what makes good research, what are the safeguards, and also how institutions can expand their research activities,” said Balas.

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