Dr. Pierre Mourad and Dr. Pietro Paparella with the 糖心vlog视频 School of STEM were awarded first place in the NW Innovation Resource Center鈥檚 Amazon Catalyst Competition in the city of Everett.
The purpose of the competition was 鈥渢o discover and reward big ideas to residents in the city of Everett with health care solutions for products, services and processes that focus on health care issues.鈥濃
A smart idea
In March 2020, Paparella, associate professor, approached Mourad with a forward-thinking idea that he believed could improve the lives of the approximately 25 million asthmatics currently living in the U.S. 鈥 a smart inhaler that monitors and tracks rescue inhaler usage on a smartphone.
As Paparella, a lifelong asthmatic, explains, all inhalers include a counter on the鈥痓ack that accurately tracks how many times an inhaler is used. But, for those with moderate-to-severe asthma who use albuterol rescue inhalers, it can still be difficult to tell how much medicine they have used in a given period of time 鈥 which is what doctors rely on to determine whether a patient鈥檚 treatment needs altering.
鈥淭racking albuterol usage is very important for asthmatics with moderate-to-severe asthma,鈥 said Paparella. 鈥淲hen a flare-up occurs, patients will see their specialist and will be asked how much they’re relying on their rescue inhaler. Of course, this is all based on the patient’s memory.
鈥淭his is obviously far from ideal, and a smart inhaler would not only provide the doctor with accurate data, it would also correlate usage with environmental triggers such as air quality, pollen counts, temperature and humidity.鈥
Bringing technology up to speed
Paparella thought up this smart inhaler solution a few years ago, but only recently revisited it when he decided to submit to the 2020 Amazon Catalyst competition, with the help of Professor Mourad, who holds a joint professorship in鈥痶he UW Department of Neurological Surgery鈥痠n Seattle.
鈥淚 had previously thought about submitting to the competition but I didn鈥檛 know if it would be a good idea,鈥 said Paparella. 鈥淏ut, I’m someone who has asthma, and over time I鈥檝e noticed the technology has not really kept up with what’s currently available. It made sense to submit this time since the theme of the competition was health care.鈥
Paparella鈥檚 smart inhaler not only sets out to simplify asthmatics鈥 ability to monitor their asthma and inhaler use, but also enhances a doctor鈥檚 ability to administer care 鈥 by tracking the number of uses, the time of day it was used, and environmental conditions at the time of use, all within one smartphone application.
鈥淭he idea was to make this device more useful for people with asthma and other breathing disorders, and also provide doctors with a much clearer picture of what’s going on,鈥 Paparella said.
Interdisciplinary collaboration
A few months after Mourad and Paparella submitted the idea, they were awarded first prize and $5,000 鈥 money they quickly decided to reinvest in their students at UW Bothell. 鈥淧ierre and I donated the majority of it to the capstone program at UW Bothell with the intent of having the students develop a prototype for their capstone project,鈥 said Paparella.
Several degree programs at UW Bothell require seniors to complete a five- to nine-month hands-on experience in which they solve a 鈥渕eaningful challenge.鈥 The professors figured developing this smart inhaler would be a great tool for experiential learning.
鈥淲e engaged two capstone teams, one involving electrical and computer engineering, and another involving mechanical engineering. Each team had four students,鈥 said Mourad. 鈥淭hese two teams worked in parallel and helped each other to move the project forward beyond what we had originally conceived.鈥
David Chiang, one of the electrical engineering students in the capstone, said the experience gave him a chance to apply what he learned in the classroom to a real-world problem, helping him understand the responsibilities of an engineer in the workforce more fully. 鈥淚 was always interested in working with medical devices so this capstone was a good learning experience for me and it also gave me an idea of how to think like an engineer instead of a student,鈥 said Chiang.
Likewise, Manny Lyu, one of the capstone鈥檚 mechanical engineering students, said that the capstone helped him better understand what it鈥檚 like collaborating with different kinds of engineers on a project and has informed his resume for the post-graduation job hunt.
鈥淭his is my first time developing a bio-medication device,鈥 said Lyu. 鈥淢ost of our courses are mainly focusing on the moving mechanism or structural analysis, but activating the mechanism with the electrical system mechatronics integrates everything.
鈥淭his experience is definitely going to help me get a job not only in the bio field, but in the mechatronics field.鈥
Possibilities for the prototype
Paparella and Mourad are confident that their students鈥 future employers will be wowed by their work on this capstone, especially because there is a functional prototype they can point to and claim some ownership of. In fact, the students鈥 contributions may have helped Mourad and Paparella more than they originally anticipated 鈥 the professors now hope the work will catalyze them to build a medical device startup and eventually bring the smart inhaler to market.
鈥淲e have a little intellectual property we think we can develop. We have a prototype that uses novel technology to deliver the drug,鈥 said Mourad. 鈥淚t’s been really fun. They’re strong students. And we will continue with another group of students next year.
鈥淪ometime over this next year I anticipate we’ll go for a larger set of funding once we have a sense of the intellectual property.鈥
