June 18, 2013 –
A team of BioE undergraduates from Professor Amy Herr’s capstone design course (BioE 192) have developed an innovative technology to improve laparoscopic surgery.
The team–Nasim Barzanian, Sakthivel Nagaraj, Neil Ray and Jeffrey Yang–was featured in this week’s Innovations newsletter from the College of Engineering.
Students in BioE 192 partner with with a physician to address a real clinical challenge, getting in-depth experience with the formal engineering design process. This team was matched with Stanford surgical resident and physician Joseph Forrester, who explained the problems of doing laparoscopic surgery when the tiny camera lens inside the patient becomes clouded with blood.
Inspired by a ballpoint pen, the students created a rotating spherical lens which is constantly cleaned by integrated suction and saline.
Read more about their invention and next steps at Innovations online.