Bernadette Gillick, PhD, MSPT, PT, professor, Division of Developmental Pediatrics and Rehabilitation Medicine, and Ryan McAdams, MD, professor, Divisions of Neonatology and Newborn Nursery and Global Pediatrics, and their teams were awarded Anderson National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Small Business Tech Transfer Grant for their project, “Stimulating the Tragus for Neural Growth (BabySTrong): A Randomized Controlled Trial of taVNS-Paired Bottle Feeding to Improve Oral Feeding.” This $1,000,000 grant is a subaward to the University of Wisconsin–Madison teaming with the Medical University of South Carolina and the Medical College of Wisconsin. The project builds upon preliminary findings of infant increased feeding volumes, quicker achievement of oral feeds, and reduction in need for gastrostomy tubes. This study’s goal is to investigate an intervention to assist pre-term and term babies with an early brain injury to overcome difficulties in learning to feed. The study began in September of this year and will run through February 2028.