Medical Technology Undergraduate Track Finalists 2014


BioBrush

Every year, 1.3 million individuals were misdiagnosed with cancer. This means that they went through an invasive biopsy procedure, waited for a period of up to a week, and received the life altering results that were not accurate. Among the most significant reasons for this misdiagnosis is that there is inadequate sample size: not enough cells are collected. This is true for many types of cancers. For example, common techniques for biliary (bile duct) cancer sample collection result in a large enough sample only 30% of the time.

The existing technology is simple, and has not been improved in over 20 years. Current devices for brush biopsies are composed a handle, a flexible shaft that is passed through the relevant anatomy, and a brush head containing nylon bristles that are used to scrape and collect sells. These devices are overly simplistic, and while they do collect cells, they are unable to collect the required number of cells for a conclusive pathology test.

BioBrush makes use of innovative materials, bristle geometry, and shaft mechanics in order to improve upon biopsy sampling tools that have not been improved in over 20 years. By increasing the scraping surface area of the brush and improving the ability of the bristles to adhere to cells, a significantly larger number of cells can be collected. Ultimately, this leaders to better diagnoses and decreased downstream costs for all stakeholders.

BioBrush is in the product development stage, and has designed several new prototypes. These prototypes are undergoing bench testing, and a usable product will be developed by May, 2014. BioBrush aims to brush away the uncertainty of cancer diagnosis for millions of patients every year.

Nayan Agarwal, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Lindsay Bauer, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Nathan Buchbinder, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Miguel Dias, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Kush Gupta, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Pattawan Jareonvongrayab, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Renu Kondragunta, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Vignesh Ramchandra, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate

 

CardioGuard

The leading cause of death in the United States is sudden cardiac arrest (SCA), which ultimately has a 95% mortality rate. 80-88% of SCAs occur in the absence of medical personnel and 40% are completely unwitnessed, Because survival rate of SCA decreases by 10% each minute that treatment is not administered, it is crucial that treatment be immediately administered to the patient at the first sign of a cardiac arrhythmia.

The standard of care for SCA is defibrillation, which involves sending a high energy shock through the heart in order to restore normal sinus rhythm. The current long-term solution is the implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD), which is implanted directly over the heart. However, there is a 3-month waiting period for it, during which patients are vulnerable to SCA. The standard of care to protect patients during this period is the Zoll LifeVest, a wearable cardioverter defibrillator (WCD). While functional, the Zoll LifeVest has a high noncompliance rate due to poor design, inconvenience, and discomfort. Our solution is the QRSTee, an improved WCD that addresses the main reasons of noncompliance for the LifeVest. Our design consists of sensing electrodes to detect ECG, a computing system to determine whether the patient has a life-threatening arrhythmia, and shocking electrodes to defibrillate the heart. The technical components are integrated into a single waterproof garment to maximize patient comfort and ease of use. The convenience and affordability of the QRSTee have the potential for considerable expansion into the enormous global market not well-penetrated by the ICD.

Melinda Chen, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Po Wei Kang, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Taylor Lam, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Akash Premkumar, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Caitlin Romanczyk, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Quinn Salditch, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Ernest So, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Sandya Subramanian, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate

 

Emsol Health

Emsol Health is a start-up medical device company that aims to reduce the likelihood of both in- and out-of-hospital adverse events, increase the accuracy of clinical diagnoses by physicians, and ultimately improve the quality of patient care.

The company's flagship product is Respirage, a simple device that will be used by nurses to quickly and accurately measure respiratory rate in emergency department triage. Through a combination of its convenient incorporation into the triage workflow, ease of use, accuracy, and cost-effectiveness, Respirage will establish a firm competitive advantage over existing market offerings. While Respirage's initial target market consists of hospital and free-standing emergency departments, it will ultimately be scaled up for use in all inpatient and outpatient healthcare sites, as well as at home for at-risk patients looking to conveniently monitor their own respiratory rate.

Richard Chen, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Phani Gaddipati, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Shohin Ghosh, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Alexia Haralambous, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Bryan Kuo, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Katrina Lee, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Alexander Mullen, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Corbin Rosset, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate

 

OPZI Technologies

Many lung diseases require a tissue sample for accurate diagnosis before proper treatment can occur. Currently, pulmonologists obtain this tissue primarily through the use of a bronchoscope and transbronchial forceps. However, this procedure has inadequate diagnostic rates that range from 10 to 55 percent, due to small sample size and crush artifact caused by the forceps biopsy device.

Despite the low diagnostic yields, physicians still highly value the information gathered from these biopsies: nearly 550,000 bronchoscopies are performed every year in the United States, each requiring a tool that costs $400 per use, which means that there is an annual market of $220 million dollars for lung biopsy devices in the U.S. alone. However, because the standard of care produces such low diagnostic yields, any device that can improve these percentages for a similar cost will thrive in the pulmonology market.

Dr. Lonny Yarmus, Fellowship Director of Interventional Pulmonology at Johns Hopkins Hospital, has researched and published a paper on the safety and ability of the ERBE cryoprobe to retrieve samples that are, on average, twice the size of the current standard of care and preserve nearly 100% open alveoli. These findings have been presented to pulmonologists around the country; however, very few physicians have been willing to attempt using the cryoprobe both due to the additional risk of unmonitored bleeding when removing the bronchoscope after each sample and the additional time removing the scope adds.

To solve this problem, OPZI Technologies is developing OPZItrieve - a device that will work in conjunction with the cryoprobe. This device will allow the samples to be retrieved through the working channel of the bronchoscope, eliminating the need for the physician to remove the bronchoscope while maintaining added size and architectural preservation of samples.

Steven Albers, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Shriya Awasthi, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Steven Dalvin, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Annie Hou, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Haley Huang, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Rachel Lee, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Qasim Mahmood, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Graeme Steller, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate

 

Prime Athlete Therapy Systems

We are creating a new standard of care for athletes and patients seeking to accelerate healing from acute injury. Currently, rest, ice, compression, and elevation (RICE) are the generally accepted methods for reducing swelling after such injury. Cryotherapy helps prevent edema formation and manages pain and muscle spasms by reducing the metabolic demand of the tissues. While cryotherapy is traditionally applied via static compression, clinical studies increasingly suggest that active or intermittent compression offers faster recovery and induces tissue healing by accelerating the body’s natural repair mechanisms.

Currently, the only active compression cryotherapy widely used by patients and athletes is incredibly expensive; each unit can cost up to $8,000, depending on which body part sleeves are included. We believe you should not have to be a varsity collegiate or professional athlete to benefit from active compression cold therapy to help you recover after an injury or workout. Every household should have access to this therapy without having to go to a professional rehabilitation center or spend exorbitant amounts of money on the existing technology.

Our Prime Athlete Therapy System offers the same active compression cold therapy used by professional trainers and sports teams but at a target price point that is 100 times lower. We are able to do this because our pneumatic compression uses a purely mechanical mechanism. Moreover, the current standard requires the customer to purchase many individual sleeves for different body parts. Our solution will offer a single adaptable sleeve to fit a wide range of sizes and body parts, further reducing costs.

With the Prime Athlete system, every household can experience a new standard in recovery and obtain access to the methods used by professional athletes and trainers.

Michael Leddy, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
James Li, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate

 

Stech Cuff

Single lung ventilation is a procedure commonly used to isolate one lung during pulmonary surgery, lung infection, or thoracoscopy. Stech Cuff is a new cuff for endotracheal tubes used in pediatric single lung ventilation. It is designed to reduce high rates of dislodgement, or movement of tubes from their correct positioning, which plague current products. Endotracheal tube dislodgement is linked to serious medical complications, including airway trauma and stenosis. Tube dislodgement also wastes operating room time and is a significant source of concern for anesthesiologists during surgery. Stech Cuff uses an innovative mechanical texture and proprietary biomaterial coating to significantly increase the force required to dislodge the tube, thereby reducing or eliminating the occurrence of endotracheal tube dislodgement. In the future, Stech Cuff will not only be applied to pediatric single lung ventilation, but will be expanded for use in all pulmonary intubations. This will include both pediatric and adult procedures, in the operating room as well as the intensive care unit.

Simon Ammanuel, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Zaid Ashai, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Emily Borst, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Wesley Chan, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Gabriel Chew, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Jon Hochstein, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Matthew Kercher, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Rishikesh Mohan, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate

 

TranslaCare, Inc.

TranlsaCare™ is an emerging software technology start-up seeking to enter a $250 million market for augmentative and assistive communication (AAC) products. The company was founded on the core principle that communication between individuals should be understood as a basic human right, and that by utilizing innovative technology, this right can be upheld for those who find themselves in even the most challenging and adverse health circumstances. TranlsaCare™ has developed a proprietary software platform that allows victims afflicted with the loss of speech and/or language skills caused by stroke, dementia, traumatic brain injury (TBI), and other neurological diseases the ability to effectively communicate with others and to rehabilitate those skills. This platform provides patients with the ability to practice speech skills independently, interact with therapists remotely from the comfort of their homes or care facilities, communicate effectively with caretakers/loved ones, and leverages usage data into actionable insights for clinicians. Our product turns any standard mobile device (tablet, smartphone) into a piece of specialized communication equipment for adults with acquired speech language disabilities.

Ryan Ries, University of Iowa, Undergraduate
Brady Eilers
John Lu
Mitul Sarkar
Dan Sirios
John Slump

 

White Light Medical

White Light Medical is a start-up medical device firm that has developed a surgical probe, AccuSpine, for the accurate placement of screws in spinal fusion surgeries.

Clayton Andrews, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Anvesh Annadanan, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Ravindra Gaddipath, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Luis Herrera, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Bradley Isaacs, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Adarsha Malla, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Erica Schwarz, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate
Eric Xie, Whiting School of Engineering, Undergraduate


 


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