A photo of two men sitting in a research lab.
Michael Hindle, Ph.D., (left) and Worth Longest, Ph.D., in the aerosol research lab. (Photo by Karl E. Steinbrenner)

March 3, 2026

VCU research project competes for national title in STAT Madness

Voting is now open in the annual competition featuring 64 of the most innovative biomedical research projects from across the United States, including VCU’s entry for helping premature infants breathe.

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By Mary Kate Brogan and Olivia Trani

A research collaboration led by Virginia Commonwealth University to advance aerosol therapy for newborns has been selected for STAT Madness, a national bracket-style competition in which the public votes for the best innovation in biomedical research of 2025.

Hosted by STAT, a news organization covering health, science and medicine, the virtual tournament highlights the most impactful and important scientific breakthroughs published during the previous year. The competition includes 64 research endeavors from 50 universities, institutes and independent labs across the United States.

The VCU-led study in this year’s STAT Madness is a collaboration between researchers in VCU’s School of Pharmacy and College of Engineering, and it has global implications for treating premature infants struggling to breathe.

Premature infants whose lungs haven’t fully developed require liquid surfactant to help them breathe and prevent respiratory distress, but the technique is expensive and requires intubation of the newborn by trained medical personnel. VCU researchers have created a handheld inhaler to deliver surfactant as an aerosol to the lungs, using a less expensive, shelf-stable powder formulation that could be administered by untrained personnel in low-resource countries. In preclinical studies, the aerosol therapy had a faster response rate, was more effective and required a lower dose than liquid surfactant.

Two of the VCU research group’s leaders – the School of Pharmacy’s Michael Hindle, Ph.D., and the College of Engineering’s P. Worth Longest, Ph.D. – were honored as the 2025 Billy R. Martin VCU Innovators of the Year by the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation and its VCU TechTransfer and Ventures office.

Voting is open now in STAT Madness for the first round, which closes March 9, and will continue through additional rounds, with the final round concluding April 6.

Those interested can vote once per day and can sign up to receive updates through STAT when each new round of voting begins.