Category Archives: BioEngineering

As part of a multi-pronged strategy to combat COVID-19, a nasal gel is being made.

The Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay is playing a lead role in the project initiated by the Department of Science and Technology (DST).

"The nasal gel, being developed in conjunction with other protective measures, will provide a strong extra layer of defense," according to Prof Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, DST.The Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), a statutory body of the DST, is supporting a technology by the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering (DBB), IIT Bombay for capturing and the inactivation of novel coronavirus, the causative agent of COVID-19.

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The funding will help the team from the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, IIT Bombay develop a gel that can be applied to nasal passage, which is a major entry point of the coronavirus, according to a press statement.

This solution is not only expected to protect the safety of health workers, but can also lead to reduction in community transmission of COVID-19, thereby helping disease management.Given the contagious nature of COVID-19, health providers, including doctors and nurses, are at maximum risk while taking care of COVID-19 patients, particularly asymptomatic ones who cannot be detected and pose a greater risk in spreading the disease.

The team is planning a two-pronged approach to limit transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the causative agent of COVID-19.

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Primarily, since viruses replicate within host cells of the lungs, the first component of the strategy will be to inhibit the binding of viruses to host cells. While this is expected to reduce host cell infection, viruses will still remain active, therefore raising the need to inactivate them.

Secondly, biological molecules would be incorporated, which would inactivate the trapped viruses in a manner similar to that of detergents. Upon completion, this approach will lead to development of gels that can be locally applied in the nasal cavity.

"Our healthcare workers and others working in the front-line of the fight against the virus deserve a fool-proof, 200% protection. The nasal gel, being developed in conjunction with other protective measures, will provide a strong extra layer of defence," said Prof Sharma.

Prof Kiran Kondabagil, Prof Rinti Banerjee, Prof Ashutosh Kumar and Prof Shamik Sen from the IIT Bombay will be part of this project. The team has expertise in the areas encompassing virology, structural biology, biophysics, biomaterials, and drug delivery and it is expected that the technology would be ready in about nine months.

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Nasal gel to prevent COVID-19 to be made in IIT Bombay - Deccan Herald

Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), a statutory body of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), is supporting technology by the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering (DBB), IIT Bombay for capturing and inactivation of a novel coronavirus, the causative agent of COVID-19.

The funding will help the team from the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, IIT Bombay develop a gel that can be applied to the nasal passage, which is a major entry point of the coronavirus. This solution is not only expected to protect the safety of health workers but can also lead to a reduction in community transmission of COVID-19, thereby helping disease management.

Given the contagious nature of COVID-19, health providers including doctors and nurses are at maximum risk while taking care of COVID-19 patients, particularly asymptomatic ones who cannot be detected and pose a greater risk in spreading the disease.

The team is planning a 2-pronged approach to limit transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the causative agent of COVID-19. Primarily, since viruses replicate within host cells of the lungs, the first component of the strategy will be to inhibit the binding of viruses to host cells. While this is expected to reduce host cell infection, viruses will still remain active, therefore, raising the need to inactivate them.

Secondly, biological molecules would be incorporated, which would inactivate the trapped viruses in a manner similar to that of detergents. Upon completion, this approach will lead to the development of gels that can be locally applied in the nasal cavity.

Prof Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, DST said, "Our health care workers and others working in the front-line of fight against the virus deserve a fool-proof, 200% protection. The nasal gel being developed in conjunction with other protective measures will provide a strong extra layer of defense",

Prof. Kiran Kondabagil, Prof. Rinti Banerjee, Prof. Ashutosh Kumar and Prof. Shamik Sen from the Dept. of Biosciences & Bioengineering at IIT Bombay will be part of this project. The team has expertise in the areas encompassing virology, structural biology, biophysics, biomaterials, and drug delivery and it is expected that the technology would be ready in about 9 months.

(With Inputs from PIB)

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DST supporting technology for capturing and inactivation of coronavirus - Devdiscourse

Universities are right on the frontline in the battle against coronavirus. Theyre loaning the NHS vital medical equipment and facilities, using 3D printers to produce personal protective equipment, researching potential vaccines, and boosting the NHS workforce with fast-tracked medical students and healthcare academics. But these arent the only ways theyre contributing. Here are a few of the unexpected ways in which universities are using their research and resources to improve peoples lives.

The lack of ventilators is one of the biggest challenges facing the health system during the coronavirus epidemic. But not all patients need a ventilator some can be treated with a breathing aid. University College Londons (UCL) engineering academics have collaborated with Formula One to rapidly develop a device that means ventilators can be saved for those who need them most.

A University of Cambridge team has developed a new test which can diagnose coronavirus in under 90 minutes by identifying traces of the virus genetic material. As well as enabling patients to be quickly triaged, the test can determine which healthcare workers have already been infected. Its currently being rolled out at hospitals in Cambridge before it is launched across the UK.

Worried that youve got coronavirus? Theres an app for that. Developed by researchers at Kings College London, the app asks participants to fill in some of their personal and medical data, then take one minute a day to report on whether they feel healthy and, if not, to answer questions on a wide range of symptoms, from coughs and fever to fatigue, diarrhoea and confusion. The goal is to inform the public as well as provide real-time information on the spread of the illness across the UK.

The coronavirus crisis is likely to put considerable strain on everyones mental health, but the pressure will be even more severe on frontline NHS workers. To tackle this, psychologists at the University of Liverpool have developed targeted mental health resources based on their work with people who have worked in high-stakes situations such as earthquakes, terror attacks and war zones.

The newly created hospital, NHS Nightingale, is located out in east Londons docklands, right next to a University of East London campus. Thats why the university is making its student halls available free of charge to healthcare workers deployed there.

Bristol Robotics Laboratory, the UKs biggest robotics centre, is usually the place scientists go to ponder the complex questions behind bioengineering. But its now deploying its two-wheeled video-conferencing robot to give people real-time art exhibition tours at Hastings Contemporary, an art gallery thats been closed due to coronavirus.

While the public health emergency is what matters most, coronavirus will also have a serious impact on businesses. Teesside University has collaborated with the Tees Valley mayor and the local authority to shore up businesses and help them survive the crisis. The university is helping local businesses shift online as well as providing support to budding digital entrepreneurs.

The lack of protective gear for NHS staff has been widely reported. Thats why staff at the Sir John Cass School of Art, Architecture and Design at London Met have sewn nearly 500 face masks over the past week to be used wherever theyre needed most, from maternity wards in hospitals to homeless shelters. The masks are made following NHS guidelines, and the staff plan to tap into the local sewing community to make hundreds more.

Sitting at home isnt where youd expect to enjoy world-class performing arts, but the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS) is aiming to shift people stuck at home away from Netflix and towards something more highbrow. Digital platform RCSatHome is offering lunchtime concerts, talks and performances from its staff, students and alumni on demand. The platform will also shortly host a new original musical written and produced by RCS students.

Two vertical farms experimenting with producing bigger, higher quality crops have been based in converted shipping containers at Nottingham Trent University for the past year. Since the outbreak of Covid-19, theyve had a new purpose: the university is boxing up pak choi, spinach, Swiss chard, lettuce, coriander and basil to provide to homeless people.

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Symptom-trackers and doctor dorms: how universities are fighting Covid-19 - The Guardian

Stanford researchers across disciplines and departments have launched research projects to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on daily life with a wide range of approaches.

Scientists, physicians and engineers are collaborating to find drugs and vaccines for the disease, combat personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilator shortages, test existing therapeutics in nationwide clinical trials and optimize the productivity of the work-from-home workforce.

Here, we highlight a few of many Stanford research projects.

Searching for therapeutics

Research to find treatments for COVID-19 has focused on discovering antibodies to enable peoples immune systems to fend off the virus that causes COVID-19, known as SARS-CoV-2, and finding drugs that target viral proteins or human cells that help the virus spread.

Toward the first aim, in late January, genetics M.D./Ph.D. student Binbin Chen and his colleagues started a project to identify fragments of SARS-CoV-2 that can be used for COVID-19 vaccines.

Vaccines are one of the most powerful tools to curb a pandemic and prevent its recurrence, Chen said. However, vaccine design is often a guessing game with new pathogens so artificial intelligence tools built upon immunology knowledge and data can provide a better educated guess and increase the chances of finding an effective vaccine.

Chen and his co-authors have made a list of vaccine candidates available in a bioRxiv preprint in an effort to help bring vaccines to the clinic. They are also organizing a long-term project to collect patient samples for future pandemics.

In the midst of the pandemic, Chen found many willing and readily accessible collaborators. Some of those volunteering to help out were from across the globe. A senior author of one of the first SARS-CoV-2 protein structure papers from China replied to Chens email within four hours. And, in addition to international help, Chen found assistance much closer to home.

I also live with one on my academic collaborators my husband so we get a lot done! Chen said.

Stefano Rensi Ph.D. 18, a research engineer in the bioengineering department, has taken a different approach to the problem of finding therapeutics: Repurpose existing drugs with the goal of getting them to the front lines as soon as possible.

Rensi and colleagues including bioengineering professor Russ Altman Ph.D. 89 M.D. 90 predicted that existing compounds can bind and inhibit a key protein transmembrane protease, serine 2 (TMPRSS2) that facilitates viral invasion of human cells.

Feeling a sense of urgency, Rensi has put other projects on hold to help out with the crisis. He believes others in the Stanford community and around the world have done the same.

People across institutions and industry are all sharing information, ideas and results, Rensi said. I cant think of any better use of our time or training than fighting a global pandemic.

As computational researchers, Rensi and his co-authors now collaborate with others to test their predicted compounds in experimental assays, or tests, to see if their drugs can inhibit the key enzyme required for the virus to enter and infect human cells.

If [the assays] pan out, we will advance to animal testing and then clinical trials, Rensi said.

Starting rapid, adaptive clinical trials

Others, including Kari Nadeau, professor of medicine and pediatrics, and Neera Ahuja, clinical professor of medicine, have worked to bring clinical trials sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to Stanford.

Nadeau and Ahuja are spearheading a trial at Stanford that is also being conducted at 64 other sites globally to test the safety and efficacy of remdesivir in hospitalized adult patients diagnosed with COVID-19. Remdesivir is a novel antiviral drug originally developed as a treatment for Ebola; it mimics a building block of viral genetic material and works to prevent viral replication.

The goal of the collaboration between Nadeau, Ahuja and the NIH is to quickly make more treatment options available for COVID-19 patients.

In very rapid form, we were able to get the trial up, site-approved and open for enrollment in about a week, which is really unheard of, Ahuja said.

Nadeau was excited to be able to work with the NIH and expressed gratitude for physicians like Ahuja, who are balancing patient care with the coordination of new clinical trials to obtain much-needed data on therapies for COVID-19.

Because there is no current therapy, we should be compelled to be a part of the best clinical trials out there, Nadeau said.

Nadeau also pointed out that clinical trials must be designed to anticipate the potential genetic mutations of SARS-CoV-2, as viruses can gain resistance to single therapies, often necessitating combinations of multiple drugs.

There are methodologies in statistics and trial design adaptive trial design where you can combine more than one drug at a time, Nadeau said. Viruses are super smart and can develop resistance. So, we are going to start an adaptive trial design for combination therapies.

Coping with working from home

Researchers like Pablo Paredes, a radiology and psychiatry and behavioral services instructor, are working on solutions to alleviate the added stress for many people who are now being asked to work from home while balancing family life.

Paredes and his collaborators are developing web-based tools specifically a Google Chrome extension and mobile app to support healthy routines for productivity, reduce over-consumption of stressful media and web content, and encourage work-life balance and family interaction.

The project, called Home Sweet Office (HSO), integrates mental health and stress management interventions created in Paredess lab, the Pervasive Wellbeing Technology Lab, with a former project from the lab of Michael Bernstein, associate professor of computer science.

We believe the new normal of human-human interaction will demand new ways of thinking and new tools for productivity, stress and mental health, Paredes said.

HSO aims not only to create tools to increase mental health and stress management, but also aggregate critical data for the future.

The data generated will serve towards studying the longitudinal causal relationships between stress, productivity, and mental health, Paredes said.

Contact Yash Pershad at ypershad at stanford.edu.

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Stanford researchers tackle COVID-19 from all angles - The Stanford Daily

I grew up in Jaipur, India, a city that is well-known for its architecture. My father is an architect, and I grew up helping him, looking at plans and making blueprints. I was always interested in building things.

During my grade 10 exams, I made a bet with my parents that if I scored the highest points in the school, I could get a motorcycle. I earned the motorcycle and gained a lifelong love for speed.

Photo courtesy of Rohit Bhargava. Map by Michael Vincent

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In India, all high schoolers take one exam to qualify for the major colleges in engineering. I ranked fourth in the country for architecture. This delighted my father, of course. However, I surprised myself and everyone else by choosing to pursue chemical engineering instead.

As an undergraduate, I appreciated that the world around us was composed of important molecules which remain largely hidden from our eyes that can only sense shape and color. In my doctoral studies, I was inspired to develop a microscope that could measure molecular composition in addition to shape a technique we now call chemical imaging.

After graduating, I went to the National Institutes of Health as a postdoctoral fellow, where we used chemical imaging to study cancer. I grew interested in cancer and how it is diagnosed. I was convinced that there was a better way than how we diagnosed it back then.

Cancer is different from every other medical condition. It strikes without warning, at any age, with amazing frequency. Forty percent of people will develop some form of cancer in their lifetime.

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

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As I learned more, I could imagine many ways engineering could be applied to cancer optics, lasers, 3D printing but where could this kind of multidisciplinary innovation thrive?

These ideas could only be practiced at an interdisciplinary university, because cancer knows no boundaries. So in 2005, when I learned that Illinois had formed a new department of bioengineering, I applied right away. Two months later, I became the first external hire in the department.

Illinois technology has transformed lives, from the transistor to the LED, the MRI and the web browser. I knew we had the science and people to transform cancer too, if only we could bring them together. In 2010, I led the formation of the Cancer Community at Illinois on this vision, with no blueprint to guide us.

As the concept of converging engineering, technology and health gained momentum and support on campus, I served on committees guiding the development of the engineering-based Carle Illinois College of Medicine and the Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Institute. The Cancer Center at Illinois was formalized as a campuswide institute in 2018, and I am honored to continue leading the effort as its first director.

Our mission is to translate engineering and basic science innovations to cancer care. This focus sets us apart from other cancer centers in the nation, whose guiding focus is clinical care.

For a century, the gold standard of diagnosis has been to add chemical dyes to biopsies, and then a pathologist looks for abnormalities. Its time-consuming and very subjective. My group has pioneered chemical imaging techniques using light instead of dyes, truly seeing cancer in colors that we were not able to previously.

Breast cancer tissue imaged in unseen colors. On the left is the standard method using dyes. On the right is a new technique we developed that gives standard microscopes state-of-the-art infrared capabilities, with results in 30 minutes. The pink is cancer.

Images courtesy of Rohit Bhargava

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We are developing artificial intelligence to analyze data from our imaging tools so that we can quickly assess the severity of disease. Tomorrow, we will use quantum computing on these data to understand cancer for individual patients.

We are developing 3D-printing techniques to create tissue scaffolds and tumor environments with a variety of materials, from plastics to sugars that dissolve away.

Imagine a physician trying to figure out which treatment would work best for a patient. Today, we try formulaic treatments on a patient and only find out weeks later whether the treatment was effective. Instead, we want to print out a replica of a patients tumor and its surrounding tissues using their own cells and testing different drugs. We could then give them a precise, individualized treatment plan that works from day one.

Traditional 3D printers lay down layers of plastic on top of each other. Our printer can essentially draw in midair, creating structures that mimic complex biological frameworks.

We have begun the process of obtaining National Cancer Institute designation. We would be the first NCI-designated basic center focused on technology. We also would be the first new basic center designated since 1987.

We already are having an impact through collaborations with our clinical partners: the University of Illinois at Chicago, the Mayo Clinic and Carle Health. We can make an even greater impact with the Discovery Partners Institute. Cancer research can be a driver of DPI, and DPI is the gateway to getting our cancer technology to the world.

CCIL scientists are developing tools for precision medicine, real-time surgical imaging, early detection, new drugs and more. We support this progress with educational programs and resource development. Pictured: Professor Rohit Bhargava and graduate student Craig Richard.

Photo by L. Brian Stauffer

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Whenever anyone thinks of technology in cancer, I want them to think of Illinois. I believe that technology can make cancer care more humane. Our tools can help eliminate guesswork for physicians, eliminate waiting for patients, and accelerate the search for cures to enable precise and personally fulfilling care for everyone, regardless of their socio-economic status. At Illinois, we are proud of the ways weve changed the world. Now we have a chance to revolutionize the cancer technology industry with the Cancer Center at Illinois.

After all this time, I'm still interested in building things.

Although he ultimately did not follow his fathers footsteps into architecture, there is one building that Bhargava is excited to help design: The future CCIL building, part of the campus strategic master plan.

Photo courtesy of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Graphic elements by Michael Vincent

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Rohit Bhargava: My path to Illinois - University of Illinois News

ALung Technologies has a device called the Hemolung Respiratory Assist System that has been getting widespread attention lately as desperate physicians search for ways to treat COVID-19 patients.

The onslaught of coronavirus has created a national ventilator shortage, as patients rely on them in life-threatening situations to blow oxygen into the lungs while removing carbon dioxide.

Hemolung is designed to keep people off ventilators as much as possible. It removes carbon dioxide directly from the blood, like a dialysis machine does for kidneys, and delivers oxygen directly to the blood. It was created to help COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome) patients.

Its currently in clinical trials in the U.S., where it has been used in 36 hospitals, and approved for use in Europe, where it has been used in 32 hospitals in the UK with thousands of patients.

In the U.S., by the way, its been used on a compassionate-use basis, an emergency-use basis, as early as three to four years ago, says Hemolung inventor William Federspiel, co-founder of ALung and professor of bioengineering at Pitts Swanson School of Engineering It was actually done here in Pittsburgh. At UPMC Presbyterian hospital.

It can be an alternative or supplement to ventilators, depending on the patients condition, he notes.

It definitely could be used to treat these COVID-19 patients, says Federspiel. But its important to point out that its not going to be an answer to the ventilator shortage. Its been a challenge to ramp up the production of ventilators. Ford and GM have gotten involved and its still a rough path.

Ventilators can cause damage to the lungs. Hemolung avoids this and doesnt require intubation or sedation, so patients can remain responsive and mobile during treatment.

The company is trying to get approval from the FDA to use the Hemolung under Emergency Use Authorization, says Federspiel. Theyre trying to get that, and then they could treat COVID patients. We hope it will keep them from having to go on mechanical ventilation.

They would be able to be awake, not sedated, could move around, talk and eat. Its a very different patient experience on the Hemolung.

ALung is based in the South Side and employs 33 people.

ALungmedical devicesSouth Side

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ALung Technologies has a respiratory device, Hemolung, that can be used in place of ventilators - NEXTpittsburgh