- I'm Jason Maderer.
Professor Jaydev Desai is in the Wallace H. Coulter
Department of Biomedical Engineering.
This is a partnership that we have with Emory.
We're going to walk through your lab
and look at four projects.
This one is about breast cancer, right?
- Yes, so in this case we are essentially trying
to determine if there are changes in the breast tissue
between normal and cancerous breast tissue.
And here, for example, we have this small breast tissue
course and we want to figure out if there are changes
in the electrical mechanical properties of these
breast tissues as they progress for normal to
cancerous tissue.
And this is pretty much a big setup here
and what we are going for now is trying to develop
a portable desktop diagnostic device.
- Something very small.
- Something very small exactly.
So here we can put sort of a breast tissue chunk
at the center.
We have a micro heater, so now in addition to
the electrical and mechanical properties
we can actually even figure out if there are changes
in the thermo properties.
And our studies have shown that there are changes
between normal and cancerous breast tissue.
- The second project, and these are all
medical robotics projects.
This is about a brain and brain tumors, right?
- Right, so currently, for example, in surgery
you can operate in the line of sight
and essentially you can operate what you see.
And what we are trying to do is to essentially
have the capability where you can operate
out of the line of sight.
So, for example, if you introduce the robot inside,
and then this robot as you can see here, it's bent,
and it's moving, so you can essentially get
to the entire tumor and use the MR image feedback,
magnetic resonance imaging,
and be able to do the whole thing
with much more dexterity than what is currently possible.
- So send a robot into the brain that is able to
sweep from side to side to have more flexibility.
- Right, and it is 3D printed,
so this can be patient specific
and you can actually 3D print a robot.
- This is for brain hemorrhage.
But again, a robotic device that goes into the brain
that is very flexible.
- Right, so as you can see here, he is going to
position this for accurate insertion point into the brain.
And now he's advancing the robot inside.
And once you're inside, you can now pretty much,
this robot has the ability to have the rolled joint
motion capability and a tip that it can bend
and be able to remove the hemorrhage that is there inside.
- We're going to move onto the fourth project,
but let's be clear, surgeons aren't using robots
like that in these ways.
- Not for hemorrhage vacation, that's right.
- So this one is a very flexible project
because it has a variety of applications.
But it's a steerable guide wire, is that right?
- Yes, as an example, if a patient has peripheral arterial
disease and there is a blockage, say for example,
on this side,
the clinician has to introduce a guide wire
from this side, go over the arch, and then come down.
So as you can see here, which is almost to scale
from a human anatomical model, you can see that it is
sort of a torturous pathway.
- A lot of twists and turns.
- That's right, that the guide wire has to go through.
And what we're interested in, essentially, is trying
to develop a technology where you can steer the end
of the guide wire, because, as you can see,
if you're trying to get a guide wire through a blockage
and it comes here, there's no way to get around it.
So you want to be able to steer it,
get around the blockage.
And this is just a very simple illustration here
that you can just pull this and, as you can see here,
you can see this guide wire prototype,
though not the guide wire used in clinic,
but it is to scale to demonstrate that concept.
And the applications of something like this are huge.
It can not only work in the peripheral arterial
disease case, but it can now actually apply to
to neurosurgery as well as pretty much anything
where you have a long, flexible device,
and you need to be able to steer it.
- Great, those are four projects from Jaydev Desai's
RoboMed Lab and you can find more at robomed.gatech.edu.