Penn Nursing’s Barbara Medoff-Cooper, professor emerita, and her business partner, Caroline Hoedemaker, recently took the top prize in the The Association for Women in Science—Central Jersey Chapter’s (AWIS-CJC) 2019 Women in STEM Entrepreneurship Challenge for Neoneur, which provides a means to measure neurological development using oral feeding-based biomarkers. Neoneur improves clinical care for premature and at-risk infants who struggle to orally feed successfully, and it provides a means to detect potential developmental delays. Lack of oral feeding success is the leading cause for delay of discharge from the neonatal intensive care units for premature and surgical infants.

Dr. Medoff-Cooper first developed the device with Penn Engineering’s Jay Zemel and patented it in 2013. It assesses both newborn neurological development and oral feeding capability measuring the physical characteristics an infant needs to coordinate oral feeding without respiratory distress: sucking, swallowing and breathing.

The Neoneur is a safe, easy to use, affordable device that is envisioned for use first in the hospital, and longer term to transition with the infant to the home. It measures natural rhythmic biomarkers that signal brain maturation, such that the infant can safely be discharged from the hospital and be orally fed in the home setting.

The Women in STEM Entrepreneurship Challenge is designed to encourage women who have embraced or plan to lead entrepreneurial ventures involving a STEM component. Neoneur received its award during the March 25 ceremony at the New Jersey State House.