MULTISCALE BIOELECTROMECHANICS LAB

Designing Medical Technology for the Developing World

This Creative Inquiry works with Madaktari Africa, a nonprofit that does medical training in Tanzania. Through this partnership, students have had the opportunity to take several trips to local hospitals in Tanzania. On trips, they have repaired medical equipment and worked with local physicians to identify shortcomings in donated medical equipment. The students bring these ideas back to Clemson and work on sustainable solutions. The goal of these projects is to create affordable medical devices that can be manufactured and/or repaired in Tanzania and other resource-poor settings. A few examples include a neck brace woven from African plains grass, a low-cost infant monitoring device, a rapid bacteria sensor, and a low-cost glucometer that uses printed test strips.

Clemson Engineering World Health
Clemson Engineering World Health on YouTube

Contact: Zachary Hargett (zharget@g.clemson.edu)

Collaborative Biomedical Engineering Design between Clemson and Arusha Technical College

Areas of the world with less resources than fully developed countries often suffer in the quality of medical treatment. This can be through a lack of trained medical professionals, working medical devices, or a multitude of other shortcomings. It is the purpose of this CI to work on solving some of these issues by collaborating with students from Arusha Technical College in Tanzania on improving and redesigning medical devices. The redesigned products are meant to be lower-cost and more sustainable than the “original” products while maintaining or improving usability.

Currently, the inter-school collaboration is done through a Facebook group for day-to-day communication and through Adobe Connect for regular monthly meetings. Groups in Arusha work independently from the groups here at Clemson, with suggestions and comments between the two schools driving innovation and helping the teams work through problems.

Clemson ATC Facebook Page

Contact: Zachary Hargett (zharget@g.clemson.edu)

Radiation for Biomedical Applications

The Radiation CI team is a collaborative effort between the Bioengineering and Physics Departments. In order to be more precise with radioactive measurements and therapies, this group will begin by characterizing the radiation sources available, which currently include a couple x-ray sources and an electron beam ion trap (EBIT). The EBIT is capable of generating monochromatic beams which will allow the group to test the effect of specific energies on Biological entities. Current sources for radiation therapy make use of a broad energy range, some of which may be unnecessary or unhelpful to the patient. This research could pinpoint the specific energies needed to improve treatment.

Contact: Dr. Delphine Dean (finou@clemson.edu)

Exploration into Soft Tissue Sports Injuries: Diagnosis and Prevention

The impact of injury on athletes is well known by the general public. Current research shows that many injuries are caused by repetitive stresses to a joint, tendon, or ligament. In this project we will use medical imaging techniques, tissue and cell based measurements, and body scale sensor data to develop measurements, and analyses to detect and diagnose the potential causes, existence of, severity, and eventually efficacy of treatment for soft tissue injuries injury. This project has a wide potential impact as well as the opportunity to work with clinicians in a clinical setting.

Contact: Liv Newkirk (onewkirk@g.clemson.edu)

Innovations in Bioinstrumentation

Bioinstrumentation is an interdisciplinary subject of applying physical principles and mechanical, electronic and chemical engineering technologies to acquire, analysis and display information from cells, tissues, organs and entire organisms including the human body. This CI was created to allow students to design and build their own bioinstrumentation and/or wearable biomedical technology projects. (Instrumentation class/experience is a pre-requisite for this team)

Contact: Delphine Dean (finou@clemson.edu)

Using Magnetic Nanoparticles to Prevent Restenosis

Aging, smoking, diet, and genetic factors cause the build up of plaque in the arteries that provide nutrients to the heart, which is a major cause of heart attacks. To solve this problem, stents are commonly used to open the artery back up. In some cases, when a stent is inserted, it injures the walls of the blood vessel causing it to swell and block the blood vessel back up. In recent years, medicated stents have been used to deliver medication that reduces that swelling by reducing the growth and spreading of the cells that cause the problem. In doing that, they also stop the healing process of the injury site, which causes delayed effects like blood clots that block the artery. We designed a magnetic nanoparticle coated with heparin. Heparin is a drug that is naturally found in the body. It is known to stop the swelling in the wall of the blood vessel and accelerate the healing process. We have tested these nanoparticles on cells and mice to show that they are not toxic. We have started to test their effect on the cell growth and spreading to show that they are effective as a treatment option. We plan to deliver that nanoparticles to the stent using a magnetic field similar to the ones used in MRI imaging. This project would advance the treatment of blocked arteries without causing new problems. In doing so, we would eliminate the need for multiple surgeries to treat the complications. This helps save patients from complications associated with stent implantation and help patients live healthier lives.

Contact: Nardine Ghobrial (nghobri@clemson.edu)

Engineering for Modern Healthcare

This Creative Inquiry brings together industrial engineers and bioengineers to tackle problems faced by nurses in modern hospitals. The students visit participating hospitals to interview nurses and to experience the needs first-hand. Then, students work together to develop solutions to the identified needs. The goal of this project is to provide practical applications for classroom learning as well as to work with a cross-discipline team.

Contact: Hannah Cash (hlcash@g.clemson.edu)

Informing Medical Device Design and Reprocessing through Human Factors Engineering and User Validation

Human factors engineering focuses on understanding how people interact with technology and studying how user interface design affects the interactions people have with technology. U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines identify human factors engineering as essential for maximizing the likelihood that new medical devices will be safe and effective for the intended users, uses and use environments. Therefore, incorporating human factors engineering into medical device design and product development can be a key factor for meeting regulatory standards and launching a successful product. The long-term goal of this Creative Inquiry is to introduce the tools and techniques used in human factors engineering and to apply those skills to medical device design. Students enrolled in this CI will interact with industry professionals and student team members to use human factors and usability testing to inform medical design decisions with a focus on how devices are used in their clinical settings and during their reprocessing. Students will conduct the testing on commonly used medical devices and medical device prototypes and use hypothesis-driven research for improving upon medical device designs. Undergraduate students looking to join this team should expect to be involved for 2-4 semesters.