Engineering the future

Imagine a control room filled with more than 200 people, watching a live video cast of an open-heart surgery as the operating surgeon talks to a university professor more than 30 miles away - think Microsoft Flight Simulator meets Operation.

More than 400 faculty, students and guests gathered in the engineering building yesterday for the third annual bioengineering Fischell Festival. The eight-hour event included a presentation from scientists about new surgical materials, a live videocast viewing of a heart surgery, a demonstration of a robot exoskeleton, student awards, a bioengineering career fair and various expert discussions.

Hosted by bioengineering department, speakers at the festival ranged from undergraduate inventors to renowned bioengineers to the event's namesake - Robert Fischell, a scientist and engineer who holds over 200 patents and founded the university's bioengineering department in 2005. The festival's registered guest list more than doubled from the 200 people who attended the first bioengineering festival in spring 2007.

Among the student work on display was an invention created by a team of senior bioengineering majors who won a $500 prize for their Capstone project: "G.I. Go: Grip It & Go," a hand-strengthening device that could be used by physical therapists to help rehabilitate patients who have lost mobility in their hands.

Seniors Sona Chaudhry, Bryan Hofferbert, D.T. Howarth, Tanya Saleh, and Kim Ziegler said they spent the majority of this semester bringing their idea to fruition. The project beat out eight other inventions, including a dialysis machine and colonoscopy-improving material which both earned runner-ups.

"We had done designs in class, but we had never experienced the communication between engineers and manufacturing before," Chaudhry said. "It was a new experience and we got to learn the [business] processes involved in being an engineer."

The team said a physical therapist told them many patients needed their device, but said they are unsure how much they will be able to market the product because all the members of the team will be graduating in May.

"Students are our lifeblood," bioengineering professor Bartley Griffith said. "And bioengineering is the future of our well-being."

A crowd of nearly 200 students, many of whom are medical school-bound, were treated to a live videocast of a total endoscopic coronary artery bypass surgery - where blood needs to be rerouted around clogged arteries to improve blood and oxygen flow to the heart.

Griffith narrated the surgery while communicating with the surgeon, Johannes Bonatti, at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore.

But this was not a routine open-heart procedure where a patient's breast bone needs to be broken so a surgeon can access the heart. No bones were broken and Bonatti never even touched the patient. Instead, he directed a four-armed robot, known as DaVinci, to use tiny instruments to cut, tear and burn away at obstructive heart tissue.

Though Bonatti is one of only two doctors in the world who is able to use the DaVinci robot to operate on the heart - it is more commonly used for prostate surgery - Griffith said once the technology becomes more streamlined, it could save countless lives.

"With the normal surgery, patients could be out of action for months," Griffith said. "This procedure could have even those with very active jobs back to work in a few weeks."

Though the audience was quiet for much of the procedure, a collective jump rippled through the crowd when a stabilizing tool, no bigger than a pinky-nail, used to hold the heart still during surgery, pierced the heart. When surgery is viewed with the clarity robotic cameras provide, even the tiniest of blood drops look like bursting red balloons.

"It's remarkable that we can sit here in a room together and have this view of the surgery," Griffith said.

"This was definitely better than last year," electrical engineering graduate student Peter Dykstra added. "Last year everyone was standing only to see something inserted into a tumor. There was definitely more detail and action this year."

A slew of inventions were also presented to the crowd including an heart stent and robotic arm.

Robotics professor Craig Carnigan and Georgetown researcher Jonathan Tang are still working on the invention, but their work probably won't be available to the public anytime soon.

"We'll probably need to build another prototype," Carnigan said. "One reason development is slow is safety. Obviously the goal of it is not to make people more injured, so we need to be really careful because the exoskeleton needs to be strong."

The $50,000 robotic arm could be used to treat athletic injuries, Carnigan added, but the Army has expressed interest in using it to help rehabilitate soldiers who suffer traumatic brain injuries that often result in a loss of muscle control. Similarly, stroke patients could recover muscle usage and movement ability with the exoskeleton.

Fischell explained how his newest invention, the Svelte Stent - a variation on a life-saving device used to prop open unhealthy heart vessels that minimizes the risk of surgical failure or complications due to its size and composition - can be commercialized and sold. About 98 percent of all stent technologies used nationally are patented by Fischell.

"It's not just engineering, it's not just medicine: It's business," Fischell said, emphasizing technology is useless if it can't be commercialized.

"If you can't get your product out then it has no effect on humanity," Fischell said. "No matter how much research you do, papers you get published or prototypes you create, when people can actually get your product, then you've done something of value."

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