PhD students make leading advances in innovative medical devices

Two students have designed innovative medical devices thanks to sponsorship from ITL.

Tudor Besleaga and Chia-Hung Li are students at the Institute of Healthcare Engineering at University College London (UCL). Ashford-based ITL, device designer and manufacturer has funded the two medical device students’ projects.

Mechanical engineering student Besleaga is designing a wearable medical device that quantifies the risk of sudden cardiac arrest while Li is developing a clinical device to monitor nasal blockage.

The students both enrolled on a doctoral training programme in medical device innovation with the support of ITL’s experienced engineers. Over the next three years the pair will continue to work on the academic research and all commercial aspects of their devices.

Besleaga and his team set out to develop a wearable unit that is robust, acceptable to the user and trusted by doctors.

His research highlighted that it would be advantageous if heart rate monitors automatically flagged up irregular activity such as arrhythmia episodes or ectopic beats.

Reflecting on the progress his team have made, he said: “We have developed a set of algorithms that we are looking forward to testing in a clinical setting, but first, we must ensure that data is recorded at the highest standards and our bespoke sensing technology would help us to do that.

“The ever-increasing adoption of ‘wellness’ devices based on optical sensing techniques has determined us to further improve the existing technology while maintaining versatility in design, and a minimal level of intrusiveness for the user.”

“We have identified four design variables to improve (skin contact pressure, light intensity, light wavelength and light tissue scattering). The device is currently undergoing evaluation tests to quantify the improvement on each of these areas.

“The next stage in development will be using our bespoke technology to target the detection of cardiac biomarkers in people of imminent risk.”

By 2018, when he finishes his PhD Besleaga intends to have a usable product. 

Li has been working on a new clinical device that monitors nasal blockage, which can indicate a range of pathologies from the common cold to nasal valve collapse and malignancy.

The growing importance of evidence based medicine has led to the increasing need to use objective methods to assess nasal blockage. Although there are a number of well-established objective methods at the disposal of rhinologists, Chia-Hung’s research revealed that most clinicians did not routinely use these methods.

Research results cited accuracy and ease of operation as amongst the most important characteristics for an objective method; and that better correlation with subjective measures reported by the patients, and the ability to assess both nostrils separately but also simultaneously, would most improve upon the existing methods. He will directly apply his findings to the nasal blockage device.

Both students have made headway with their projects and ITL’s involvement has injected a commercial focus into their programme, leading to both students developing working prototypes of their innovations, hopefully taking them from a research idea to the market.

ITL’s new product development manager, Steve Hope, said: “We are really impressed by the progress both students have made at this stage. They are both showing real commitment.

“Supporting their work is a privilege and I look forward to the breakthroughs and challenges we’ll encounter together over the next three years.”