Title: “Design for Patient Mobility During Treatment for Neurological Dysfunction”
Team: Hope Balatan, Hanieh Iravanian, Bryant Lu, Natasha Wong
Client: Dr. Arash Afshinni, MD; Associate Clinical Professor, UCSF
“Paralysis is one of the most common disabilities resulting from ischemic stroke. The level of 1 severity ranges from one-sided weakness (hemiparesis) to one-sided paralysis (hemiplegia). However, most patients experience hemiparesis. Stroke patients with hemiparesis may have difficulty with everyday activities, such as walking, leaving them immobile and dependent on their caregivers.
Our top unmet need is finding a method to facilitate movement from sitting on the bedside to sitting in a wheelchair in ischemic stroke patients experiencing hemiparesis in order to reduce the frequency and severity of physical injuries in both the patient and the caregiver”
Title: “Treating Hydrocephalus: The Ventriculoperitoneal Shunt paired with Ultrasonic Cavitation”
Team: Lienna Chan, Sasha Demeulenaere, Amanda Fazekas, Christine Giuliano, and Nishi Juthani
Client: Sunghoon Kim, M.D, Division of Pediatric Surgery, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland
“Hydrocephalus is a serious neurological condition characterized by the accumulation of
cerebrospinal fluid in the ventricles of the brain, usually due to blockage of drainage pathways, which can lead to neurologic and cognitive deficits. The current standard of care is the surgical placement of a ventriculoperitoneal (VP) shunt that drains the CSF from the brain ventricles into other body cavities, most commonly the peritoneum. Within two years, however, a revision surgery is most often necessary due to obstruction of the device.
Given the extremely high rates of shunt failure and the risks associated with invasive shunt diagnostic and repair methods, there lies a need for a device which effectively eliminates excess CSF from the brain of pediatric patients diagnosed with hydrocephalus, in order to prevent frequent reoperation throughout their lifetimes.
Title: “Redesigning the ChemoFilter to Fit a Variety of Hepatic Vein Sizes”
Team: Radhika Mardikar, Preethi Bhat, Vikki Qian, Sonya Wong, Tim Li
Client: Dr. Steven Hetts, Chief of Interventional Neuroradiology at the UCSF Mission Bay Hospitals
“Our project investigated the application of the ChemoFilter within unresectable hepatic tumors. To mitigate patient toxicity during chemotherapeutic treatment of patients with hepatocellular carcinomas (HCC), the ChemoFilter acts to filter out filtering out excess chemotherapeutic before it reaches other organ systems, while allowing continued blood flow through the target vessels. However, while the device is effective at capturing the drug, it was fixed in size and was not modular for all potential vein sizes.
Our top user need is to ensure that the device size is adjustable to fit in a variety of hepatic vein diameters in patients with non-resectable liver cancer in order to decrease overall negative systemic toxicity and ultimately increase treatment success rates.”
Title: “Pathlight: Navigation for Dementia Patients in Indoor Public Spaces”
Team: Laurel Nelson, Hannah Tongthaworn, Jacob Szymkowski, Lauryn Jordan
Client: Susanne Stadler, Executive Director/Co-Founder of At Home With Growing Older (non-profit organization)
“As aging is an inevitable part of life, there is an increasing number of geriatric patients with dementia. The rapid progression and long-term nature of the disease makes care difficult for both patients and their caretakers. A common problem that arises in the daily life of dementia patients includes navigation of public spaces. Dementia patients often feel debilitated and confused in new or unfamiliar locations. As such, successful navigation can help improve emotional health.
Our top need is a method to assist navigation in public indoor spaces for dementia patients with mild to intermediate cognitive impairment in order to reduce caretaker intervention time.”
Title: “Electronic EEG Syringe for Real Time Observable Contact Impedance”
Team: Robert Wilkerson, Justin Lu, Justin Villamor, Kamala Pillai
Client: Elizabeth “Beth” Pierce, Lead MRI Specialist, Department of Neurology, UCSF
The electroencephalogram (EEG), which reads voltages at specific locations on the participant’s scalp as measurements of brain activity, is an important diagnostic for brain function in both healthy and impaired individuals with conditions including ADHD, Autism, Depression, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s disease. With a specific focus on ADHD patients, we our team sought to tackle the primary challenge of detecting non-ideal scalp impedance in real-time during EEG trial setup
Our top user need is to develop a product that measures real-time contact impedance for optimal EEG signal integrity, specifically in studies pertaining to children with ADHD, to develop cognitive function treatment techniques that combat ADHD symptoms.”
Title: “Cardiac Imaging with a Gel Phantom Using MRI Tagging and DENSE”
Team: Nikita Bhatia, Geena Kim, Ashna Mangla, Michael Yang
Client: Mark Ratcliffe, MD., Professor of Medicine, Surgery, UCSF, and Vicky Wang, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Scholar at UCSF
Heart failure is one of the leading causes of death in the United States. MRI is capable of tracking 3D in-vivo cardiac motion using the Displacement Encoding via Stimulated Echoes (DENSE) algorithm, which is a method to extract myocardial motion data by quantifying strain and displacement of the heart. In order to accurately assess changes in contractility of the heart due to heart failure, the DENSE algorithm is calibrated using a cylindrical silicone gel phantom. However, current versions of this cardiac gel phantom do not perform the left ventricular twist motion of the heart.
Our top unmet need is to artificially generate cardiac motion signals for MRI DENSE algorithm for adult patients with heart failure in order to accurately assess heart failure mechanics and design devices that treat heart failure.
Title: “Automatic Suture Device to Reduce Bleeding in Gastric Bypass Surgery”
Team: Mariana Alvarez, Blake Feldmar, Sofia Haile, Manooshree Patel, Brandon Zhang
Client: Jonathan Carter, M.D., Associate Professor of Surgery, Bariatric & Gastrointestinal Surgery Programs, Division of General Surgery, UCSF
Gastric bypass surgery is often performed using the Endo GIA Universal Stapler, which simultaneously cuts and seals tissue by placing three lines of staples on either side of the incision. However, these staples are often unable to completely seal the tissue, and bleeding occurs along the staple-line.
Our top need is to develop a device that minimizes bleeding in laparoscopic (roux-en-y) gastric bypass surgeries in order to decrease the need for multiple sealing methods during surgery, follow-up care and/or follow-up surgery, and patient mortality rates.
Title: “The Use of a “Double Rib Splint” to Fixate Rib Fractures Close to the Spine”
Team: Carina Hernandez, Kevin Luong, Camille Mercier, Joseph Nguyen, & Eric Wang
Client: Joe Forrester, M.D., M.Sc., Clinical Instructor, Surgery (General), Stanford Medical Center
About 17 million patients experience rib fractures every year, accounting for about 40% of US hospital trauma admissions. Rib fractures are typically treated with either “medical management” (painkillers), or by securing the fracture with anatomically contoured titanium plates to drastically reduce recovery time. Meanwhile, fractures too close to the spine are left untreated with no device on the market to treat these fractures.
Our top unmet need is to develop a method to fix rib fractures in patients experiencing breaks close to the spine in order to facilitate a faster recovery.