Mayo Clinic has been selected to lead a groundbreaking research project focused on improving indoor air quality and safety in healthcare settings by the Advanced Research Project Agency for Health (ARPA-H). The project, part of the ARPA-H BREATHE program, aims to develop new ways to monitor and improve air in real time, helping protect public health in buildings nationwide.
Mayo Clinic will lead the Hospital Air QUality (HAIQU): Breathing Life into Patient Care project, focusing on improving indoor air quality in hospitals to enhance health. "Maintaining high indoor air quality is essential to supporting respiratory health and preventing the spread of airborne illnesses - just one of the many ways we prioritize staff, patient and visitor well-being," says Connie Chang, Ph.D., associate professor of biomedical engineering at Mayo Clinic and the project's principal investigator. "This initiative will push innovation in public health as we study and design systems that can continuously monitor air quality in real time and establish cost-effective interventions."
Through the HAIQU project, Mayo Clinic will introduce cutting-edge biosensors, artificial intelligence and smart air filtration systems in emergency departments across Mayo Clinic's campuses in Florida, Arizona and Minnesota. These innovative technologies work together to enhance air quality by proactively monitoring the environment, assessing potential risks and automatically improving air safety when needed - creating healthier spaces for patients and care teams alike.
The work is directly aligned with the design priorities of Bold. Forward. Unbound., which emphasizes clean, flexible and intelligent environments to support optimal healing.
"This award reinforces Mayo Clinic's commitment to harnessing the power of technology and data to prevent illness before it starts," says Vijay Shah, M.D., Kinney Executive Dean of Research at Mayo Clinic. "Our research will help create resilient clinical systems capable of sensing, interpreting and responding to data in real time, making the hospital of the future even more sophisticated for our patients."
The project will unfold in three phases over five years, beginning with the development of a biosensor to monitor emergency room air for aerosols such as viruses, bacteria, mold and allergens. Once validated, the system will undergo real-world testing and could lay the foundation for future indoor air quality standards and public health policies.
The Mayo Clinic-led effort includes a multidisciplinary team of collaborators from Siemens Corporation, Metalmark Innovations, Princeton University, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, and The University of Chicago. The coalition brings together expertise from the healthcare, biotechnology and academic sectors. Mayo team members also include Jim Wilking, Ph.D. (biomedical engineering), who will lead the engineering effort to design the biosensor; Chung Wi, M.D. (Precision Population Science Laboratory), who will lead a clinical study to validate the research; Alexander Revzin, Ph.D. (biomedical engineering); Clifton Haider, Ph.D. (biomedical engineering); Priya Sampathkumar, M.D. (infectious diseases); Casey Clements, M.D., Ph.D. (emergency medicine, Minnesota); Andrej Urumov, M.D. (emergency medicine, Arizona); and Jesse St Clair IV, M.D. (emergency medicine, Florida).
