EVL Professor Liz Marai Awarded NIH R01 for Data-Driven Dysgeusia Care

EVL Professor G. Elisabeta (Liz) Marai has been awarded an NIH R01 from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) for SCH: Flavor Charter: Precision Data-Driven Diagnosis, Monitoring and Guidance for Dysgeusia. Co-investigators are Hananeh Esmailbeigi (Biomedical Engineering), Ameen Salahudeen (Department of Medicine, College of Medicine), and Xinhua Zhang (Computer Science). The project includes a subaward to the University of Iowa, where Guadalupe Canahuate serves as subaward PI.

Taste loss (dysgeusia, or altered taste) is a significant toxicity in head and neck cancer patients that changes their quality of life. It affects 51–100% of patients at the end of radiotherapy and 23–50% of patients one to two years after treatment, with no known end date. The poor nutritional choices that can follow may contribute to sarcopenia, or muscle wasting, which multiple datasets directly associate with increased mortality and poorer clinical outcomes.

Flavor Charter creates a data-driven computational approach to address critical gaps in how dysgeusia is diagnosed and monitored, and to create and deliver nutritional guidance for patients living with it.

Congratulations to Liz and the team!

Award Details

Sponsor: NIH National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), R01DE037101
PI: G. Elisabeta Marai
Co-Is: Hananeh Esmailbeigi, Ameen Salahudeen, Xinhua Zhang
Subaward: University of Iowa (Subaward PI: Guadalupe Canahuate)
Period: September 2026 to July 2030
Amount: $1,157,399 (anticipated over four years)