08/26/2026
🎉Huge congratulations to Senior Design team, Novel Neonatal Respiratory Support Interface, on earning 2nd Place Prize ($15,000) in the 2026 DEBUT Challenge!!
Team members: Julia Rothschild, Anika Sagar, Ryan Dugan, Nika Kazumyan
Faculty Supervisor: R. Marisol Herrera-Perez
Faculaty Instructors: Scott Seidman & Benjamin Castañeda
Each year, approximately 10% of infants born in the U.S. cannot breathe independently. Devices used to provide respiratory support to preterm babies often cause injuries, sometimes as extreme as permanent nasal deformity. The team’s Ledernosen prototype redesigns the commonly used Fisher & Paykel (F&P) bubble continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) interface to reduce pressure injuries and abrasions from ill-fitting apparatuses, enabling longer-term use and easier setup. The preliminary success of Ledernosen, demonstrated by airflow and contact pressure testing, indicates significant potential to reduce injury caused by respiratory support interfaces in life-saving NICU care.
👏💙 We are incredibly proud of the team and their innovative work to advance neonatal respiratory support!
Funded by the NIH’s Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), this year’s competition was especially strong, with 119 applications from 64 universities across 29 states and 490 students participating. Finishing second among such a competitive field is an outstanding accomplishment!
🎥 Watch a video on this amazing research: https://lnkd.in/gtQz5e_9
, Hajim School of Engineering & Applied Sciences, University of Rochester
🎉 A standout DEBUT!
The 2026 DEBUT Competition winners are here! Fourteen winning projects and five honorable mentions were selected from more than 100 entries, earning a combined $190,000 in prizes for solutions addressing urgent challenges in health and clinical settings.
Special shoutout to Axio Recovery, NeoFusion, and ClubFoot Instru-Sole, recipients of the VentureWell-supported awards!
We’re proud to celebrate these exceptional undergraduate innovators using biomedical design to create solutions for better healthcare.
🧪 🩺 Meet the winners → https://bit.ly/4xDJKIR
