Dr. Xiaohu Guo, a computer science professor in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Texas at Dallas, was recently awarded three significant research grants.

These grants, bestowed by the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) and the National Institute for Health (NIH), underscore the importance of his work in the field of healthcare. The projects also demonstrate how computer science is evolving into a fundamental discipline, with the potential to address a wide range of health-related issues.

Dr. Guo has been using his research interests in computer graphics and computer vision technology to solve various health challenges, such as developing a machine learning algorithm for the early detection of oral cancer, developing a hyperspectral laparoscopic imaging system that can help in the detection of tumor margins in laparoscopic prostatectomy, and developing motion capture technology to study primary muscle tension dysphonia (pMTD), a voice disorder that has proved hard to quantify or link to a cause.

“Over the past 18 years at UT Dallas, I have been collaborating with quite a few biomedical experts from both UT Southwestern and UT Dallas,” said Dr. Guo. “I really enjoyed working with them to see how our computer graphics and computer vision technology could be leveraged to solve those health challenges, ranging from cancer diagnosis and treatment to voice disorder study.”

The million-dollar CPRIT grant was given to the research project titled “Real-Time, Label-Free, Micro HSI Device and Transformer-Based Attention Networks for Oral Cancer Imaging,” led by UT Dallas professor Dr. Baowei Fei, the Cecil & Ida Green Chair Professor of Bioengineering, Director of Quantitative Bioimaging Laboratory and Director of the Center for Imaging and Surgical Innovation. The interdisciplinary collaboration team includes Dr. Guo and Dr. Kamran Kiasaleh from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

The first NIH grant was given to the research project titled “A Real-Time Hyperspectral Laparoscopic Stereo Imaging System for Robot-Assisted Surgery,” also led by Dr. Fei, who collaborated with Drs. Guo and Kiasaleh. More than $2 million will go to researching the urgent need to develop innovative imaging technologies that can improve the detection of various physiologic conditions during surgery.

The second NIH grant was given to the research project titled “Paralaryngeal-Respiratory Spatiotemporal Patterns in Muscle Tension Dysphonia,” led by Dr. Adrianna Shembel, UT Dallas assistant professor of speech, language, and hearing in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS). Dr. Guo has been working with Dr. Shembel on developing motion capture technology to help with devising new metrics and methods to track laryngeal and respiratory muscle movement patterns in people with voice disorders, including primary muscle tension dysphonia (pMTD), common among those in vocally demanding professions, such as education or performance.