Current Project Information
Client Information: Our client is UN&UP (https://www.unandup.com/) with our main point of contact being Michael Sabo (mes@unandup.com).
Need Statement: There is a need to shorten the time frostbite goes untreated and the time to localized drug delivery to improve patient outcomes and increase limb retention and function.
Project Scope: Physicians need a method to quickly and accurately deliver frostbite therapeutics to affected extremities where blood often coagulates. This timelier and more targeted therapeutic intervention will improve patient outcomes allowing them to attain extremities and relevant function for a higher quality of life. The therapeutic localization device will be accessible to all extremities impacted by frostbite, and the therapeutic agent will reach affected areas within 1 minute of device activation. Additionally, to test the validity of this localization a realistic phantom reflecting the dynamics of extremity vasculature will be fabricated. We will deliver a programmable control system for a magnet (therapeutic device) and a realistic phantom to our client UN&UP by April 25, 2025, as well as all proper documentation for fabricating the therapeutic device and phantom.
Recent Activities
We were unable to meet with our client Mike Sabo due to his travel schedule this week.
However, we were still able to continue brainstorming and thinking through possible solutions to our need to localize magnetic nanoparticles in the distal areas of fingers and toes. We began to think about how we could reduce the degrees of freedom of our problem by isolating the localization into a two-dimensional plane along the proximal/distal and medial/lateral axes of the hands and feet.
We also utilized the TRIZ process to think about different tradeoffs within our device. One major concern is heat (dependent on the utilization of electromagnets or permanent magnets), and how this heat could possibly be utilized and offloaded into a rewarding bath as one possibility. Another was how to preserve the flexibility and accessibility of the device while improving the ease of operation, to which the solution is segmentation.
Future Steps
We are awaiting some updates from UN&UP on proprietary information that may impact our design given some testing they did off-site this week.
Additionally, we are looking at how to model simple linear (1D) versions of nanoparticle flow due to magnet induction and how that could inform our solution and design.
Questions/Things to Look Into
None.