Ways Tulane Students Change the World: #1,834

by Lindsey Hoyt, Admission Counselor

Biomedical engineering grads and their ventilation device.

If you were to dedicate a year of your college experience to finding a solution to someone else’s medical issue, what would that issue be? Would you use your own two hands to build a more comfortable prosthetic limb for someone in your neighborhood? Or would you create a procedure that would allow physicians in low-resource communities to more efficiently and successfully resuscitate a newborn? 

This is the challenge all Tulane biomedical engineering students are presented with at the beginning of their Team Design project. To not only find a solution to a problem, but to find the problem itself.

But let’s back up a bit. Nearly two decades back, in fact. Long before public service was a requirement for all Tulane students, a Tulane biomedical engineering professor began identifying members of the New Orleans community with disabilities whose needs could be directly addressed by Tulane’s biomedical engineering students. The Team Design project became a component of the required curriculum for the BME program, and through the years, over 200 families were helped by specialized assistive devices built by Tulane undergraduate students. 

Dr. Lars Gilbertson

When Dr. Lars Gilbertson took the reins a few years ago, he began to expand the program to consider issues in global health, addressing problems faced by the medical community in low-resource settings and partnering with local non-profits.

In recent years, students have worked closely with Team Gleason, an organization founded by hometown hero and former Saints player Steve Gleason. Tulane biomedical engineering students developed devices to help people afflicted by Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease). Last year, one team developed a control system that allows a patient to operate the joystick of a wheelchair through eye movements alone. Another team worked on an automatic suctioning device for patients with a tracheal tube.

 

Saints Head Coach Sean Payton and Steve Gleason in the Superdome. Courtesy: New Orleans Saints

Before they can create these devices and systems, however, the students go through a rigorous process of research, not only identifying the problem they want to address, but researching all “prior art;” and answering questions Dr. Gilbertson throws at them in class. “How soon does a lack of blood flow lead to ischemia and then tissue death in surgical patients placed in a single position over an extended period of time?” “Who is the target audience for a device like this? Hospitals? Caregivers? The patients themselves?” “How has the team addressed issues like patience compliance?” “Is this clinically relevant?” Good natured and supportive, Dr. Gilbertson still challenges the students at every turn, and they respond to his questions with confidence.

As the year progresses, the students will work with Dr. Gilbertson, local and national experts in specific medical fields, and their team members to design their device. They will also work with Tulane’s Office of Technology Transfer to file for provisional patents on their devices. 

These undergraduate students will have complete control over their intellectual property, and several have gone on to found start-ups based on the devices and systems they created while under Dr. Gilbertson’s mentorship at Tulane University.

If you could change the world, how would you do it?