Project Grant R01HL187584

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute awarded The Regents of the University of Colorado (University of Colorado-Denver) $746,392 in project grant funding on September 1, 2026, under the Cardiovascular Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.837) to delineate ventilator-induced lung injury arising from specific types of ventilator dyssynchrony—double-triggered, flow-limited, and ineffective-triggered breaths.

The research addresses the gap in understanding dose-response relationships between individual dyssynchrony types and patient mortality or lung injury. Current practice treats all dyssynchronies as a single entity despite evidence that only specific types generate high-stress or high-strain breaths; the project will determine which dyssynchrony frequencies worsen outcomes to inform clinical sedation decisions. The work combines bench-to-bedside collaboration leveraging a murine model that recapitulates precise ventilator waveforms defining dyssynchrony, a machine learning algorithm for classifying dyssynchrony from ventilator waveforms, and an automated data pipeline collecting ventilator waveform and electronic health record data.

Performance runs from September 1, 2026, through May 31, 2031, at the University of Colorado-Denver site in Aurora, Colorado. The award is classified as a Project Grant, a standard NIH assistance type for individual research projects evaluated on scientific merit and technical adequacy of experimental design.