Bio-CAD Projects

The design of the currently marketed Cystoscopes hasn't changed in decades. They aren't very user-friendly, quite frankly very scary looking, and on top of everything, they're extremely difficult to clean leading to cross-contamination - accompanied by hundreds of lawsuits for hospitals. So, why not come up with a fresh look which challenges the old design and addresses all these shortcomings?

I started with just that! But first, I didn't know anything about cystoscopes nor anything about CAD modeling. So, I took a step back and started with the basics. I self-taught myself how to use Fusion 360. At the same time, I read everything about cystoscopes - what are the attachments, what problems do clinicians face with them currently, etc. One highlight of doing this research was that I found photos and videos of clinicians using it two ways - some preferred keeping it horizontal, while others preferred using it at an angle. I instantly decided to cater to both these segments to allow easier adoption by the clinicians. This also became the differentiating element between my design and any other design in our class of 25 (this USP did receive some applause at the end). After this exercise, I naturally started materializing a crude design in my head. There was no stopping me after that!

I sketched my design, made a clay model to self-validate the design, made a 3D CAD model following all the best practices of DFMA, 3D printed my design, realized my mistakes, improved my design...This loop went on 3-4 times with every time giving me a better concept and a more satisfying design - so it was worth it.

Presenting to you - the Med Fé ^TM Cystoscope!!!

Designed for manufacturing (two-shot injection molded, Bayblend PC-ABS), the Med Fé^TM Cystoscope is much more aesthetically pleasing while also having significant advantages, both clinically and economically! This novel design features:

• A two-way ergonomic grip catering to all surgeon needs

• Strategically placed water inlet-outlet pipe locations to give minimum obstruction during surgery and electrical insulation

• Easy slide controls to toggle flow of inlet & outlet water supply along with appropriate color coding to avoid user-errors

• Uses standard and optimum components (screws, luer-locks, power connector) to minimize assembly time

• Significantly cheaper (Labor Burden Material estimates for 10K units stand at ~$80/unit) making it significantly cheaper than traditional cystoscopes and hence can be made disposable saving thousands of dollars in lawsuits for hospitals.

My grandfather had Parkinson's disease (PD) and so right from childhood I've seen how handicapped this condition can make someone. There are more than 10M people worldwide living with PD and since no cure currently exists for this disease, the patients heavily rely on pharmaceutical drugs - which often don't work that well. Due to their hand tremors, one of the daily challenges faced by them is to get one pill out of the bottle. Let's be honest here, even you and I face this difficulty on a regular basis. So, how can we make it a little simpler?

The single-pill dispensing cap was envisioned to minimize the involvement of hand in this task and hence drive down the error rates. The design includes a lot of other cool features including:

• A modular 3 stage design that snap-fit together to reduce assembly costs

• Compatibility with any off-the-shelf pill bottle with secure latching

• A curved conical funnel in stage 1 streamlines the movement of the pills and prevents clogging. (Funnily, the funnel also leverages hand tremors of PD patients to further use it to its advantage!)

• Rubber grip on twisting module for easier use by PD patients (also includes indications of twist direction)

• A locking mechanism that clicks every 60 degrees to give feedback to the user indicating one pill dispensed

A special moment was when I presented this on the final day of submission. I talked about how it worked and then went on to show the demo - all eyes on it, and the moment when a single pill comes out..... truly proud/happy/content moment.

Existing mitral valve (MV) replacement involves using a un-customized circular (planar) annular ring being sutured on an uneven mitral valve annulus.

But does one size fits all? This leads to post-operation complications such as leaks between the two chambers (MV regurgitation leading to pulmonary hypertension).

Hence, this project involved using 3DSlicer to segment out the region-of-interest from the patient's DICOM heart data obtained from pre-operation CT scans and modeling a custom fit Mitral Valve Annulus ring (non-planar) specifically tailored for the patient, which could be used during valve replacement. This also reduces mitral annular strains caused otherwise with planar rings.