Opioid disorder treatment: first three weeks forecast success

Peer-Reviewed Publication

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IRVING MEDICAL CENTER

NEW YORK, NY--A newly developed prediction model may be able to calculate the risk of opioid relapse among individuals in the early stages of medication treatment—as early as three weeks into therapy. 

“Medication treatment for opioid use disorder, contrary to popular belief, is very effective and likely to succeed if patients achieve early treatment success,” says Sean X. Luo, MD, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, who developed the model with Daniel Feaster, PhD, of the University of Miami.

The model, based on data from 2,199 adults enrolled in clinical trials of opioid use medications, estimates in the first few weeks of treatment the likelihood that a patient will return to using opioids before the end of a 12-week treatment program.

More specifically, for patients prescribed buprenorphine, increasing dose of an oral formulation or switching to an extended-release injection formulation could be considered quickly. Physicians should also evaluate patients with high risk of relapse for other factors that may need attention, such as co-occurring psychiatric disorders.

To disseminate the tools developed from this project, the team built a web portal (www.oudriskscore.org) that allows clinicians to estimate the risk of relapse of their patients.

What’s next

Although physicians may modify treatment for patients with a high risk of relapse, no studies have been conducted to determine the optimal strategies. “We need new clinical trials that test different treatment modifications among high-risk individuals,” Luo says.

More long-term follow-up data also are needed to estimate timing and probability of relapse beyond the 12-week treatment phase.

The need

The medications methadone, buprenorphine, and extended-release injection naltrexone are effective for many patients, but many patients return to opioid use during the 12-week treatment program.

When treating chronic conditions, physicians often use risk scores to predict the likelihood of future health events and use those scores to guide treatment. But no such risk score is available for opioid use disorder treatment.

“Once a patient relapses and drops out of medication treatment, they are in danger, including risk of overdose, and can be hard to locate and re-engage,” says Columbia psychiatrist Edward Nunes, MD, who co-led the new study. “If physicians know in the first few weeks of treatment who is in danger, they can respond early and hopefully head off trouble.”

Using machine learning to build a predictor

To build a predictor that estimates a patient’s risk of returning to drug use, the researchers applied machine learning techniques to data from previous clinical trials that tested three medications for opioid use disorder. A method called LASSO automatically constructed predictive models using the most informative patient characteristics. The models were then tested on an independent validation subset of the harmonized dataset to assess for model performance. 

Using patient data available at the start of treatment, the best model had a performance of around 70%. Model performance improved substantially when results of urine drug tests in the first three weeks of treatment were incorporated.

When the urine drug tests results are included, the model predicts that patients with no positive or missed drug tests in the first three weeks have a 13% risk of returning to use, whereas those with three positive or missed tests have an 85% risk of return to use.

Why it matters

“Our model now gives clinicians a way to quantify a patient’s risk of relapse early on in treatment and treatment modifications can be considered,” Luo says. “Medication doses can be increased and more frequent monitoring and psychotherapy options introduced for higher risk patients.”

More information

The study, titled "Individual-Level Risk Prediction of Return to Use During Opioid Use Disorder Treatment," was published in JAMA Psychiatry on October 4.

Sean X. Luo, MD, PhD, is assistant professor of psychiatry at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons Luo and treats patients with addictions in his private practice.

All study authors: Sean X. Luo (Columbia), Daniel J. Feaster (University of Miami), Ying Liu (Columbia), Raymond R. Balise (Miami), Mei-Chen Hu (Columbia), Layla Bouzoubaa (Miami), Gabriel J. Odom (Florida International University), Laura Brandt (City College of New York), Yue Pan (Miami), Yih-Ing Hser (University of California, Los Angeles), Paul VanVeldhuisen (Emmes Company), Felipe Castillo (Columbia), Anna R. Calderon (Miami), John Rotrosen (New York University), Andrew J. Saxon (University of Washington), Roger D. Weiss (Harvard University), Melanie Wall (Columbia), and Edward V. Nunes (Columbia).

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DOI

10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2023.3596 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Individual-Level Risk Prediction of Return to Use During Opioid Use Disorder Treatment

COI STATEMENT

Edward Nunes has served as a consultant without compensation for Indivior, Camurus, and Pear Therapeutics and has received in-kind donations of medication or digital therapeutics from Alkermes, Braeburn-Camurus, Indivior, Pear Therapeutics, and CHESS Health. No other disclosures from Columbia authors were reported.

Stigma felt by opioid-dependent moms impacts the health care received by their babies

Findings from University of Missouri study can help emphasize messages of compassion and support toward opioid-dependent mothers

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-COLUMBIA

 

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PREGNANT WOMAN

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CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- The rate of opioid use among pregnant women in the United States quadrupled between 1999 and 2014 and continues to rise — an alarming trend that researchers from the University of Missouri and University of Iowa say has exposed the stigma felt by opioid-dependent mothers and how their shame has negatively impacted the health care received by their infants.

Jamie Morton led a study, which was a metasynthesis of existing literature on the topic, as a doctoral student at the MU Sinclair School of Nursing. She said the findings can help ensure health care providers, family members, friends and community members emphasize messages of support and compassion toward opioid-dependent mothers during the perinatal stage, which in this study was defined as one year prior to conception, pregnancy, and up to 18-24 months postpartum.

“We found that because the mothers were made to feel badly about themselves, they would withdraw themselves from receiving health care,” Morton said.

Morton added that since the mothers were often not getting any emotional or social support from health care providers, family, friends or community members, they felt self-blame and would internalize the stigma.

“What was surprising was the stigma was also transferred to the baby, a term known as associative stigma. The moms felt their infants were not given the same level of care or were treated differently,” Morton said. “The moms would just withdraw from even receiving health care in the first place in an effort to protect their child from being stigmatized, so they were less likely to take their baby to the pediatrician and less likely to take advantage of developmental services for their baby.”

Morton explained that this sometimes led to the mothers being referred to as “noncompliant” or “bad mothers.”

The researchers analyzed and synthesized 18 qualitative studies involving women of childbearing age in the U.S. who expressed feeling stigmatized due to their opioid dependence during the perinatal stage, as well as how the stigma impacted the health care they received for themselves and their babies.

“How often do we hear the phrase ‘the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree’?” Morton said. “Personally, I think everyone should be given a chance and treated with the same kindness and compassion as anyone else.”

Morton formerly worked in a newborn nursery and remembers mothers that would be very withdrawn.

“I made it a point to just treat them as any other mom, because all moms deserve our support as nurses and health care providers,” Morton said. “We just need to promote the opportunity for them to still be at the center of their health care decisions regarding both them and their babies as well as promoting their role as a mom.”

The research could potentially lead to more formalized education that could include trauma-informed care, topics such as trust, active listening, unconscious bias, and not judging based off assumptions. This could result in opioid-dependent mothers feeling more comfortable accessing care for themselves, taking their baby to the pediatrician or taking advantage of developmental services for their baby. This would ultimately improve both the mom’s and the baby’s long-term health outcomes.

“This expands way beyond nurses and health care providers, who, in general, do a great job of showing support, kindness, and compassion to the patients they serve,” Morton said. “This expands to the importance of family, friends, community members and the general public showing support, kindness and compassion. It is an honor and privilege to elevate the voices of these vulnerable women because their voices are not typically heard, but they need to be so we can meet their health care needs.”

“Stigma experienced by perinatal women with opioid dependency in the United States: A qualitative metasynthesis” was recently published in the Western Journal of Nursing Research. Funding was provided by the National Institutes of Health through a training grant awarded to the MU Sinclair School of Nursing.

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JOURNAL

Western Journal of Nursing Research

DOI

10.1177/01939459231182495 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Literature review

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Stigma experienced by perinatal women with opioid dependency in the United States: A qualitative metasynthesis

POSTMODERN ALCHEMY

Charged “molecular beasts” the basis for new compounds

Researchers at Leipzig University use “aggressive” fragments of molecular ions for chemical synthesis

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITÄT LEIPZIG

 

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COVER OF THE JOURNAL ANGEWANDTE CHEMIE

 

 

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CREDIT: PHOTO: LEIPZIG UNIVERSITY

Developing new ways to break and reform chemical bonds is one of the main tasks of basic chemical research. “When a bond in a charged molecule is broken, the result is often a chemically ‘aggressive’ fragment, which we call a reactive fragment. These fragments are difficult to control using established methods of chemical synthesis. You can think of them as untamed beasts that attack anything in their path. In a mass spectrometer, there are many ways to break certain bonds and generate fragments,” says Dr Warneke, describing the processes in mass spectrometers. According to him, the “beasts” are kept under special conditions because there is a vacuum inside the mass spectrometer. This means that there is nothing for them to attack, thus preventing uncontrolled chemical reactions. “If we then offer a certain molecule, for example nitrogen, which is normally unreactive and doesn’t bind, the beast is satisfied with it because it has no other choice,” he says. In this way, molecules that are very difficult to bind, such as nitrogen, can be easily incorporated into a new substance,” Warneke continues.

In the past, the research team has used this approach to bring reactive fragments into very unusual reactions, for example, with noble gases, which are the most difficult of all chemical elements to bind. “The basic strategy of controlling chemical beasts in mass spectrometers is not new,” says Warneke. It has been used for decades to analyse the properties of reactive fragments. However, the new compounds found in this way could not be further used. Mass spectrometers show what is happening inside them, but the new substances are only produced in tiny quantities and cannot usually be extracted. They are often simply destroyed when the signal used for analyses is generated.

This is why researchers usually come away from experiments with mass spectrometers with “great knowledge” but “empty hands”. “They have the beast under control. Exactly what they were hoping for happens, they observe the new molecule with potentially fascinating properties, and then it’s gone,” says Warneke, describing chemical experiments in conventional mass spectrometers. The new publication could fundamentally change this view of chemical reactions in mass spectrometers. The research team produced a new substance from an aggressive fragment and unreactive nitrogen and collected it with preparative mass spectrometers in sufficient quantities so that it could be seen with the naked eye, handled and further experimented with.

The amount of substance produced by this method will remain limited to thin film technology applications for some time to come. However, preparative mass spectrometry could soon open up completely new possibilities for these applications, for example, in the production of microchips, solar cells or biologically active coatings. The junior research group has now reached an important milestone in its project, which has been funded by the Volkswagen Foundation’s Freigeist Fellowship since 2020.

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JOURNAL

Angewandte Chemie

DOI

10.1002/anie.202312430 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Inside Cover: Chemical Synthesis with Gaseous Molecular Ions: Harvesting [B12Br11N2]− from a Mass Spectrometer (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 45/2023)

 

Vacuum in optical cavity can change material’s magnetic state without laser excitation

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF MATTER

 

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INSIDE THE OPTICAL CAVITY, LIGHT PARTICLES EMERGE AND DISAPPEAR. THESE FLUCTUATIONS CAN CHANGE THE MAGNETIC ORDER OF Α-RUCL3 FROM A ZIGZAG ANTIFERROMAGNET INTO A FERROMAGNET.

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CREDIT: J. HARMS, MPSD

Researchers in Germany and the USA have produced the first theoretical demonstration that the magnetic state of an atomically thin material, α-RuCl3, can be controlled solely by placing it into an optical cavity. Crucially, the cavity vacuum fluctuations alone are sufficient to change the material’s magnetic order from a zigzag antiferromagnet into a ferromagnet. The team’s work has been published in npj Computational Materials.

A recent theme in material physics research has been the use of intense laser light to modify the properties of magnetic materials. By carefully engineering the laser light’s properties, researchers have been able to drastically modify the electrical conductivity and optical properties of different materials. However, this requires continuous stimulation by high-intensity lasers and is associated with some practical problems, mainly that it is difficult to stop the material from heating up. Researchers are therefore looking for ways to gain similar control over materials using light, but without employing intense lasers.

Now theoreticians at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) in Hamburg, Germany, Stanford University and the University of Pennsylvania (both in the USA) have come up with a fundamentally different approach to change a real material’s magnetic properties in a cavity  – without the use of any laser light. Their collaboration shows that the cavity alone is enough to turn the zigzag antiferromagnet α-RuCl3 into a ferromagnet.

Crucially, the team demonstrates that even in an apparently dark cavity, α-RuCl3 senses modifications of the electromagnetic environment and changes its magnetic state accordingly. This is a purely quantum mechanical effect, arising from the fact that within quantum theory the empty cavity (technically called the vacuum state) is never really empty. Instead, the light field fluctuates so that light particles pop in and out of existence which, in turn, affects the properties of the material.

“The optical cavity confines the electromagnetic field to a very small volume, thereby enhancing the effective coupling between the light and the material,” explains lead author Emil Viñas Boström, a postdoctoral researcher in the MPSD Theory Group. “Our results show that carefully engineering the vacuum fluctuations of the cavity electric field can lead to drastic changes in a material’s magnetic properties.” As no light excitation is needed, the approach in principle circumvents the problems associated with continuous laser driving.

This is the first work demonstrating such cavity control over magnetism in a real material, and follows previous investigations into cavity control of ferroelectric and superconducting materials. The researchers hope that designing specific cavities will help them realize new and elusive phases of matter, and to better understand the delicate interplay between light and matter.

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JOURNAL

npj Computational Materials

DOI

10.1038/s41524-023-01158-6 

ARTICLE TITLE

Controlling the magnetic state of the proximate quantum spin liquid α-RuCl3 with an optical cavity

 

Bridging the best of both electrolyte worlds for a better lithium-ion battery

Researchers apply a ceramic conductor to a polymer electrolyte to increase conductivity

Peer-Reviewed Publication

TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY PRESS

 

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A NEWLY DEVELOPED CERAMIC FILLER MAY HELP ALLEVIATE LIMITATIONS OF COMPOSITE SOLID-STATE ELECTROLYTES. THE FILLER NOT ONLY MITIGATES INTERFACE BARRIERS BETWEEN THE COMPOSITE COMPONENTS, BUT IT ALSO PROVIDES AN ADDITIONAL LITHIUM-ION TRANSPORT PATHWAY, INCREASING THE NUMBER OF IONS AND THE SPEED WITH WHICH THEY MOVE THROUGH THE ELECTROLYTE.

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CREDIT: ENERGY MATERIALS AND DEVICES, TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY PRESS

Lithium-ion batteries powered the device on which these words appear. From phones and laptops to electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries are critical to the technology of the modern world — but they can also explode. Comprising negatively and positively charged electrodes and an electrolyte to transport ions across the divide, lithium-ion batteries are only as good as the limitations of their components. Liquid electrolytes are potentially volatile at high temperatures, and their efficiency can be limited by nonuniformity and instabilities in the other components.

 

Researchers are working toward developing safer, more efficient batteries with solid electrolytes, a significant change over the liquid version that currently transports ions in most commercially available batteries now. The challenge is that each solid-state material has as many drawbacks as advantages, according to a team based at the Shenzhen All-Solid-State Lithium Battery Electrolyte Engineering Research Center in Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School’s Institute of Materials Research.

 

To solve this conundrum, the researchers combined two of the prime solid-state candidates — ceramic and polymer — into a new composite electrolyte.

 

They published their results on Sept. 21 in Energy Materials and Devices.

 

“Composite solid-state electrolytes have received significant attention due to their combined advantages as inorganic and polymer electrolytes,” said co-first author Yu Yuan, who is also affiliated with Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School. “However, conventional inorganic ceramic fillers offer limited ion conductivity enhancement for composite solid-state electrolytes due to the space-charge layer between the polymer matrix and ceramic phase.”

 

Inorganic ceramic electrolytes offer high conductivity, but they develop resistance when faced with another solid and are complicated to synthesize. Polymer electrolytes are easier to produce, more flexible and work better with electrodes, but their conductivity at room temperature is too low for commercial application. According to Yuan, combining the two should produce a highly conductive, flexible electrolyte that is easier to synthesize. In reality, however, when mixed, the composite solid-state electrolytes have a separation — called a space-charge layer — between their constituent parts that limits their conductivity.

 

To correct this, the researchers used lithium tantalate, which has a crystalline structure that lends itself to unique optical and electrical properties, as a functional filler to mitigate the space-charge layer. The ceramic ion conductor material is ferroelectric, mean it can reverse electric charge when a current is applied.

 

“Not only does the filler alleviate the space-charge layer, but it also provides an extra lithium-ion transport pathway,” said co-first author Likun Chen, who is also affiliated with Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School.

 

The researchers experimentally demonstrated that the lithium tantalate filler eases the bottleneck for lithium-ion transport across the polymer-ceramic interface, resulting in lithium ions moving in both increased numbers and speed through the electrolyte.

 

The result, the researchers said, is an electrolyte with high conductivity and a long-cycling life — referring to how often the ions can be transported across the battery in charging and discharging cycles — even at low temperatures.

 

“This work proposes a novel strategy for designing integrated ceramic fillers with ferroelectric and ion-conductive properties to achieve high-throughput lithium-ion transport of composite-solid electrolytes for advances solid-state lithium metal batteries,” Yuan said. “Our approach sheds light on the design of functional ceramic fillers for composite solid-state electrolytes to effectively enhance ion conductivity and battery performance.”

 

Other co-authors include Yuhang Li, Xufei An, Jianshuai Lv, Shaoke Guo, Xing Cheng, Yang Zhao, Ming Liu, Yan-Bing He and Feiyu Kang. Li, An, Lv, Guo, Cheng, Zhao and Kang are also affiliated with Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School.

 

The National Natural Science Foundation of China, Key-Area Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province, Shenzhen Outstanding Talents Training Fund, All-Solid-State Lithium Battery Electrolyte Engineering Research Center and Shenzheng Technical Plan Project supported this research.  

 

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About Energy Materials and Devices

Energy Materials and Devices is launched by Tsinghua University, published quarterly by Tsinghua University Press, aiming at being an international, single-blind peer-reviewed, open-access and interdisciplinary journal in the cutting-edge field of energy materials and devices. It focuses on the innovation research of the whole chain of basic research, technological innovation, achievement transformation and industrialization in the field of energy materials and devices, and publishes original, leading and forward-looking research results, including but not limited to the materials design, synthesis, integration, assembly and characterization of devices for energy storage and conversion etc.

 

About SciOpen 

SciOpen is a professional open access resource for discovery of scientific and technical content published by the Tsinghua University Press and its publishing partners, providing the scholarly publishing community with innovative technology and market-leading capabilities. SciOpen provides end-to-end services across manuscript submission, peer review, content hosting, analytics, and identity management and expert advice to ensure each journal’s development by offering a range of options across all functions as Journal Layout, Production Services, Editorial Services, Marketing and Promotions, Online Functionality, etc. By digitalizing the publishing process, SciOpen widens the reach, deepens the impact, and accelerates the exchange of ideas.

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JOURNAL

Energy Materials and Devices

DOI

10.26599/EMD.2023.9370004 

ARTICLE TITLE

Functional LiTaO3 filler with tandem conductivity and ferroelectricity for PVDF-based composite solid-state electrolyte

Photo battery achieves competitive voltage

Researchers from the Universities of Freiburg and Ulm have developed a monolithically integrated photo battery using organic materials

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF FREIBURG

 

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THE MONOLITHICALLY INTEGRATED PHOTO BATTERY MADE OF ORGANIC MATERIALS ACHIEVES A DISCHARGE POTENTIAL OF 3.6 VOLTS. PICTURE: ROBIN WESSLING

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CREDIT: PICTURE: ROBIN WESSLING

Networked intelligent devices and sensors can improve the energy efficiency of consumer products and buildings by monitoring their consumption in real time. Miniature devices like these being developed under the concept of the Internet of Things require energy sources that are as compact as possible in order to function autonomously. Monolithically integrated batteries that simultaneously generate, convert, and store energy in a single system could be used for this purpose. A team of scientists at the University of Freiburg’s Cluster of Excellence Living, Adaptive, and Energy-Autonomous Materials Systems (livMatS) has developed a monolithically integrated photo battery consisting of an organic polymer-based battery and a multi-junction organic solar cell. The battery, presented by Rodrigo Delgado Andrés and Dr. Uli Würfel, University Freiburg, and Robin Wessling and Prof. Dr. Birgit Esser, University of Ulm, is the first monolithically integrated photo battery made of organic materials to achieve a discharge potential of 3.6 volts. It is thus among the first systems of this kind capable of powering miniature devices. The team published their results in the journal Energy & Environmental Science.

Combination of a multi-junction solar cell and a dual-ion battery

The researchers developed a scalable method for the photo battery which allows them to manufacture organic solar cells out of five active layers. “The system achieves relatively high voltages of 4.2 volts with this solar cell,” explains Wessling. The team combined this multi-junction solar cell with a so-called dual-ion battery, which is capable of being charged at high currents, unlike the cathodes of conventional lithium batteries. With careful control of illumination intensity and discharge rates, a photo battery constructed in this way is capable of rapid charging in less than 15 minutes at discharge capacities of up to 22 milliampere hours per gram (mAh g-1). In combination with the averaged discharge potential of 3.6 volts, the devices can provide an energy density of 69 milliwatt hours per gram (mWh g-1) and a power density of 95 milliwatts per gram (mW g-1). “Our system thus lays the foundation for more in-depth research and further developments in the area of organic photo batteries,” says Wessling.

About the Cluster of Excellence livMatS

The vision of the Cluster of Excellence Living, Adaptive, and Energy-Autonomous Materials Systems (livMatS) is to combine the best of both worlds – nature and technology. livMatS develops lifelike materials systems inspired by nature. These systems adapt autonomously to their environment, harvest clean energy from their surroundings, and are insensitive to or able to recover from damage.

• Original publication: Andrés, R. D., Wessling, R., Büttner, J., Pap, L., Fischer, A., Esser, B., & Würfel, U. (2023). Organic photo-battery with high operating voltage using a multi-junction organic solar cell and an organic redox-polymer-based battery. Energy & Environmental Science. DOI: 10.1039/d3ee01822a
• Prof. Dr. Birgit Esser heads the Chair in Organic Chemistry at the Institute of Organic Chemistry II and Advanced Materials at the University of Ulm. She is a member of the Clusters of Excellence Post Lithium Storage (POLiS) at Ulm University and Living, Adaptive, and Energy-Autonomous Materials Systems (livMatS) at the University of Freiburg.
• Dr. Uli Würfel leads the group “Organic and Perovskite Solar Cells” at FMF and FIT at the University of Freiburg and is a member of the Cluster of Excellence livMatS at the University of Freiburg. In addition, he is head of the research topic “Organic and Perovskite Photovoltaics” at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE).
• Rodrigo Delgado Andrés is pursuing a doctorate under Dr. Uli Würfel at the Cluster of Excellence livMatS.
• Robin Wessling is pursuing a doctorate under Prof. Dr. Birgit Esser at the Cluster of Excellence livMatS.
• The study was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) (livMatS – EXC 2193).

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DOI

10.1039/d3ee01822a 

Career Award: UVA Engineering researcher has plan to defeat the next big cyberattack

Grant and Award Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCE

 

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ASHISH VENKAT, AN ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND CYBERSECURITY EXPERT, HAS RECEIVED AN NSF CAREER AWARD TO DEVELOP A HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE SYSTEM ENABLING RAPID, SECURE MITIGATION OF CYBERATTACKS, INCLUDING ZERO-DAY EVENTS.

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CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCE

By Sara Novak

They’re called “zero-day attacks” and they’re what keeps cybersecurity experts like Ashish Venkat up at night.

These are the cyberattacks that disable large-scale computer programs, catching their victims off guard. In recent years, they’ve been happening more often and have become increasingly difficult to fix.

“The term zero-day attack means that a developer didn’t know about the flaw beforehand giving them zero days to fix it,” said Venkat, the William Wulf Career Enhancement Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science. “A new attack is discovered every 17 days and it takes an average of 15 days to patch these vulnerabilities.”

Vulnerabilities Are Costly to Patch

Companies large and small as well as individuals spend far too much time and money fixing these flaws. And, Venkat said, they end up introducing more vulnerabilities while they’re trying to patch old ones.

Venkat recently received a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation with the goal of solving these urgent issues. It’s one of the NSF’s most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to lead advances from within their field. Venkat joined the University of Virginia in 2018 shortly after obtaining his Ph.D. from the University of California San Diego.

His fix could both reduce attack response time and protect programs from other attacks while an issue is being mitigated. Venkat’s team will develop a “decoupled” security response, which means designing a holistic security-centric hardware software stack that allows technicians to go into a computer system to fix a vulnerability through a separate security entrance, on demand and in the field.

Innovation Could Lead to Faster Response Time

“As long as computer systems have flaws, cybercriminals will try to exploit them,” said Sandhya Dwarkadas, the Walter N. Munster Professor and chair of computer science at UVA. “Ashish’s proposed stack is an innovative use of integrated hardware and software components dedicated to security functions. His project addresses a critical need and I look forward to following his progress.”

Venkat’s system could help him stop emerging zero-day cyberattacks within 24 to 48 hours, 13 days faster than the average response time today. His solution also could reduce the significant time and dollar costs of frequent patching, redeployment and hardware upgrades.

When cybersecurity experts are trying to reach the site of a problem, they often leave doors open behind them on the way. Venkat’s decoupled approach will create a security tunnel running through the system so that in the midst of a cyberattack, technicians can rapidly locate the vulnerable component and enforce an appropriate security policy to fix it without opening new entry points for bad actors.

“The decoupled hardware software stack allows security policies to be defined in software, but enforced in hardware, enabling versatility, flexibility and efficiency at the same time,” Venkat said. “In fact, the project’s second objective is to design new computer hardware to enforce emerging cybersecurity measures against a range of attacks without compromising efficiency.”

The third objective is to enable the new hardware to continuously track the flow of information for precise enforcement of software-defined security policies.

Building a Cyber Workforce for the Future

The CAREER Award, which totals over half a million dollars, also has an educational component. As computer software gets more complicated and is made up of increasingly specialized components, it’s getting harder to train the next generation of cyberexperts — both technicians to work on the systems and researchers to assess impending threats.

The goal, Venkat said, is to improve cybersecurity curricula and awareness for high school, vocational and college students. As part of the project, his team will establish a mentorship program for undergraduate students, including groups traditionally underrepresented in engineering and computer science, to help build a cybersecurity workforce for the future.

Finally, Venkat isn’t limiting his approach to cybersecurity defense — he’s also using offensive tactics, known as ethical or “white hat” hacking. The practice uses a team of highly trained ethical hackers to examine a system before a hack occurs.

“You teach students how to ethically hack a system with the goal of better understanding potential vulnerabilities and to improve the security of modern systems,” Venkat said.

His research group earned significant press attention in 2021 for discovering a security vulnerability that impacted millions of computers with Intel and AMD processors. Subsequent efforts to discover vulnerabilities includes their work on hardware Trojan attacks, which has been nominated for a best paper award at DATE 2023, the Design, Automation and Test in Europe conference.

Real-World Implications for Real People

Venkat is also concerned about building protections against global threats such as the WannaCry ransomware attack in 2017. Exploiting a vulnerability in the Microsoft Windows operating system, WannaCry spread to more than 200,000 computers in 150 countries within days — harming large and small organizations, including hospitals. The malware, which can self-propagate across networks, encrypted the computers’ data and demanded cryptocurrency payments in exchange for returning control of the computers to their owners.

“These attacks can go after anyone, not just huge corporations,” Venkat said. “They can put mom-and-pop companies out of business, they can impact your grandmother. “When companies aren’t able to invest in cybersecurity, sometimes they just go out of business because their insurance premiums become so inflated.”

Venkat’s goal is to create a set of cybersecurity fixes that are economical for individuals and small businesses alike.

“There’s an urgent need for systems that are designed to be secure from inception and to tighten security around already deployed systems vulnerable to attack,” he said. “I’m passionate about this work because, in the end, it’s people who are harmed by zero-day and other cyberattacks.”