# Personal Cooling Garments to Protect at-Risk Patients from Extreme Heat Waves

> **NIH NIH R41** · GENERAL ENGINEERING AND RESEARCH, LLC · 2024 · $275,765

## Abstract

Personal Cooling Garments to Protect at-Risk Patients from Extreme Heat Waves
Project Summary/Abstract
Global warming is resulting in more intense, more frequent, and longer periods of extreme heat
events, which have caused numerous diseases and, in some cases, fatalities. Heat stress could
especially impact patients with heart, lung, and blood diseases. Patients suffering from heart
disease, poor blood circulation, high blood pressure, obesity, as well as the elderly have a higher
risk for heat-related illness due to low sensitivity in temperature changes and weak self-regulation
capability. A lightweight personal cooling garment could be a game-changing solution to protect
at-risk patients with cardiovascular, lung, blood, and other diseases during extreme heat events.
However, today’s personal cooling garments are not adequate as they are often too bulky and
heavy, have limited cooling duration, and have no or limited temperature controllability. There is
a strong need for a personal cooling garment with effective cooling, adjustable temperature,
lightweight, is flexible & wearable, consumes less power (high coefficient of performance), and
has low cost. The project aims to develop and test prototypes of personal active cooling garments
to protect at-risk patients from heat waves. The project will leverage the core intellectual property
developed at UCSD on flexible thermoelectric devices (f-TEDs). GE&R LLC and UCSD will
establish a high-throughput manufacturing process to scale up the fabrication of flexible f-TEGs
specifically designed for personal cooling, integrate them into garments with temperature-control
electronics and power supply, and test the garments using lab benchtop experiments. We will
participate in the NSF I-Corps program at UCSD to interview potential users and conduct a market
survey for further development towards commercialization.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10822850
- **Project number:** 1R41HL172682-01
- **Recipient organization:** GENERAL ENGINEERING AND RESEARCH, LLC
- **Principal Investigator:** robin ihnfeldt
- **Activity code:** R41 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $275,765
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-09-15 → 2026-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10822850

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10822850, Personal Cooling Garments to Protect at-Risk Patients from Extreme Heat Waves (1R41HL172682-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10822850. Licensed CC0.

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