About Me:

Hello everyone!! My name is Samantha Simmons. I am an undergraduate at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) studying Management Information Systems. This is my first year participating in the RET program. When the opportunity was presented to me, it was a no-brainer to be in the program. This program allows me to get some research experience and allows me to receive advice from veteran teachers before I have to begin student teaching for my IQP this coming school year. For my student teaching, I will be placed at Elm Park Community School, teaching Mathematics to fifth graders. On campus, I am an active member of the Teacher Preparation Program, Inspiring and Developing Educators Association (IDEA), Women’s Club Soccer, and Phi Sigma Sigma. When I find time to myself, I enjoy hiking with my friends, going on runs, jamming out to Taylor Swift, and reading.

About the Lab:

This summer Jayne Kerner and I are trying to help build and test a smart catheter to measure pressure during a thrombectomy to treat ischemic strokes. Currently, the technology to help remove a blood clot blocking blood flow to the brain involves suction from a catheter under x-ray visualization. The end of the catheter is very tiny and the task of ensuring that the catheter is directly on the blood clot is difficult. If the catheter is not in the correct position to suction the clot away, the artery can collapse. There are also scenarios where the clot gets jammed during removal attempts.

The hope with a smart catheter is that the pressure readings can provide feedback during surgery to help doctors determine the placement of the catheter relative to the clot. We want to help assemble the smart catheter, and then test it with the bench-top testing set up to determine if it can accurately measure pressure in the cardiovascular system and if its readings can successfully prevent arterial collapse.

First we are going to assist with ongoing efforts to develop a protocol to mount the pressure sensing fiber optic cable inside of the catheter that would be used for suction. This involves testing different adhesives and using the microscope to visualize the fiber optic cable’s orientation. Once successful, we will arrange the bench-top testing set up with phantom silicone arteries and hydrostatic pressure to simulate blood from the heart. 

The goal will be to determine if the pressure from a blood clot before, during and after removal can be successfully measured. We will attempt to collapse the phantom arteries to see if pressure differences are observable.  Our analysis could help provide proof of concept for the smart catheter that could later be refined into a product safe to use in surgery.

 

Project Title: Engineering Bench-Top Testing of Interventional Devices for Cardiovascular Diseases

Weekly Updates:

• Week 1a (6/27/24 & 6/28/24):

During these first two days of RET, we started with an orientation and team-building exercise to start getting to know the other participants in the quick 6-week RET program. On the first day of the program, I finally got to meet the in-service teacher (Jayne Kerner) that I will be working with over the summer. We both got a brief overview of the lab and got to meet most of the graduate, undergraduate, and Mass Academy students working in the lab this summer. Each of the students working in the lab briefly explained their project to us. After getting a brief overview of the entire lab Professor Zheng and Brianna then explained what our goals were for each week over the summer with the project and if we need to edit the project goals we always can. Professor Zheng then sent us the proposal they used to get the grant for the project so we would be able to understand on a deeper level what the project is actually for.

Outside of the lab this week our RET cohort got together for lunch on Friday from 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm and got chatting about what everyone else was starting to do in the labs they were assigned to this summer. After our lunch, we went into a Chemical Engineering Lab in Goddard Hall. Here we learned some basic information about some equipment in the lab that mostly seniors are using. After this tour Jayne and I went back to reading the proposal that Professor Zheng sent to us.

 

• Week 1b (7/1/24-7/3/24):

The first thing that Jayne and I did this week was meet with Professor Zheng and bombarded him with a lot of questions that we had from reading the proposal and clarifying some aspects of the overall project for Jayne and I to complete throughout the week. After having our meeting with Professor Zheng Jayne and I went to the lab and got the software needed set up to start working. One piece of software that we needed to download this week was Amscope. Amscope allowed us to view the small fiber optic piece of glass on our computer screen from under the microscope. This software will be especially helpful later in our research when working under the microscope will be key for mounting the fiber optic onto the catheter. Another major thing that Jayne and I accomplished this week was having a brainstorming session with our PhD candidate Brianna Raphino. Within this brainstorming session we ordered a few materials that Jayne and I will be testing in the lab next week to get the fiber optic glass to stick to the inside of the catheter. Next week should be a fun week in the lab!

• Week 2(7/8/24 – 7/12/24):

This week has been such an amazing week in the lab. The first thing Jayne and I were tasked with on Monday of this week was submitting our Research Proposal for the RET program. We actually were able to finish it in Week 1B, but met with Professor Zheng quite helpful in person to discussion about both our project and Research Proposal. We then got to attend our first MedMain Lab Meeting, where everyone in the Lab discussed how their research was going and what next steps their research was going to take. It was quite incredible hearing all of the different things that so many people were researching in just one lab. Our time in the Lab this week has been a productive one for the development of the Smart Catheter!

This week started off to a bit of a slow start with Jayne and I testing a bunch of glues to see which adhesive would stick the fiber optic cable to the sample catheter the best. After testing out all of the glue and some brainstorming, Jayne came up with the genius idea to try sticking the fiber optic cable into the sample catheter with some tape and tweezers. When that first tape test worked Jayne and I became more precise with our taping tests. We decided that I would be orienting the fiber optic cable under the microscope and Jayne would then apply the tape when we got the correct orientation of the fiber optic cable. From there Jayne would take the fiber optic cable with the correct orientation and stick it into the sample catheter with the correct orientation. After this we went to Innovation Studio and started working in SolidWorks to be able to 3D print a placeholder for the catheter we are inserting the fiber optic into. We luckily got to meet with our PhD candidate Brianna the day we figured that the tape method could actually work and success seems to be on the horizon for the Smart Catheter. On the last day of the week we started to practice the procedure  Jayne and I came up with on the actual catheter. This procedure became so much harder because we were unable to see where the tiny piece of fiber optic was actually going when in the catheter.

 

• Week 3 (7/15/24 – 7/19/24):

As predicted, this week has been quite an exciting time in the lab. Bright and early on Monday morning we met with Professor Zheng and Brianna Raphino to update them on our progress from Week 2 of the program. After discussing some future steps with both of our mentors, we all went to the Fiber Optic Lab in Gateway to learn more about the process of how the fiber optic cables are being made. In this lab tour we learned that the real fiber optic cable is actually coated in gold, so it will be a bit easier for us to see in the clear sample catheter. Another thing that Jayne and I discovered in this lab tour is that we were actually orienting the the fiber optic cable the wrong way, but are now confident in the way we are orienting it in the fiber optic cable. After this brief lab tour we rushed to our MedMain Lab meeting. At the lab meeting we were able to listen to others progress and share ours with the entire MedMain Lab group.

The future step that Professor Zheng said that we would be taking with the project over the next couple of weeks was testing if we could mimic a few blood clot tests with tofu. One main aspect of this next step we had to take care of was creating something with the same hydrostatic pressure of blood. Initially we didn’t know how to convert hydrostatic pressure to the correct height we needed to mimic the blood pressure Professor Zheng mentioned to us, but through a few Google searches and some assistance from an undergraduate working in the lab with us we were able to make complete some calculations to the height we needed our hydrostatic pressure to be at. Once we figured out the height we needed to mimic the blood pressure, Jack Shanks helped us build an adjustable stand with some extra materials in the lab, so our hydrostatic pressure could sit somewhere. A side quest that we have been trying to complete is creating as many phantom arteries as possible to be able to test with in the following weeks. The only annoying thing that we learned this week is that we have to leave the phantom arteries in the pressure cooker for at least 48 hours. I believe that Jayne and I are very close to perfecting the phantom arteries, hopefully by next week we will be able to master the phantom arteries.

• Week 4:

 

• Week 5:

 

Our Final Poster: