Advances in Medical Devices 1

Presenting Author: Eve Sobirey, PhD Student
Institute of Product Development and Mechanical Engineering Design
Hamburg University of Technology

Bio: Eve Sobirey studied biomedical engineering at Leibniz Universität Hannover (LUH). Since 2023, she has been working as a research associate at the Institute of Product Development and and Mechanical Engineering Design (PKT) at TUHH. Her research focuses on the development and validation of small vessel models for animal-free training of neurointerventions.

Co-authors: Jonte Schmiech, Fabian Flottmann, Matthias Bechstein, Maximilian Jungnitz, Martin Oertel, Jens Fiehler and Dieter Krause

This study presents a novel computational framework combining continuum and particle methods to investigate the rolling dynamics of leukocytes in microfluidic channels. Using a hybrid approach that integrates Dissipative Particle Dynamics (DPD) with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and the Curvilinear Immersed Boundary method, we examined white blood cell (WBC) behavior in both rectangular and spiral trapezoidal microchannels. The trapezoidal channel design, created using cloud-based CAD software, features a symmetrical cross-section optimized for enhanced Dean vortex formation. Our numerical experiments primarily investigated how membrane stiffness influences cellular deformability and trajectory under laminar flow conditions. Results demonstrate that the velocity near the trapezoidal channel's taller edge (outer wall) exceeds that of the shorter edge (inner wall), promoting increased WBC rolling behavior compared to rectangular channels. The cells exhibit anticlockwise rotation in the X-Z plane, with streamlines indicating fast flow recovery behind the cell. Our findings show that increasing the stiffness of the cell's membrane significantly affects its margination behavior in microchannel flows. This continuum-particle hybrid method provides an accurate and efficient tool for evaluating microfluidic device designs. The insights gained from this study could prove valuable for designing next-generation micro-carriers for targeted drug delivery systems that mimic the margination behavior of leukocytes, while also paving the way for optimizing passive cell sorting devices using numerical frameworks.

Presenting Author: Thien-Tam Nguyen
Civil Engineering
North Dakota State University

Bio: Thien-Tam Nguyen is pursuing his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering at North Dakota State University under Dr. Trung Bao Le, developing an exascale high-performance framework for multi-scale blood flow simulations. His innovative work uses hybrid structured grids and the AMReX framework to enable enormous parallel computing and multi-GPU use with continuum and molecular dynamics techniques. In his 2019 B.Sc. in Physics from Vietnam National University, he studied TSPO protein interactions using molecular dynamics.

He designs AMReX-based flow solvers and the AMRESSIF code as a Graduate Research Fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (2023–present). He pioneered computational research of white blood cell dynamics in microchannels for cell sorting and hybrid staggered/non-staggered formulations for modeling incompressible flows with block-structured mesh refinement. His research on leukocyte migration in shear flows helps understand immune responses and bloodstream cancer spread, while his brain aneurysm research improves rupture risk calculators using unsupervised machine learning and CFD.
His work has been honored with Physics of Fluids Editor's Pick (2025) and the Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation's "Safe, Smart, Secure" cover. He frequently talks at important conferences including the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics and the Design of Medical Devices Conference, combining computer science, fluid dynamics, and biomedical applications.

Co-author: Trung Le

Management of coronary bifurcation lesions often remains clinically challenging. Currently, simple bifurcation lesions are opened using the provisional stenting technique. While this technique has been shown to be optimal for simple coronary lesions, small side branches are often left unopened, remaining covered by the stents. When and which vessels should be opened remains a topic of investigation. This study evaluated how flow changes in vessels that are covered by stents before and after opening by estimating fractional flow reserve. Optical coherence tomography and high resolution (<40 micron) micro -CT analyses were also used to evaluate the vessel dimensions and stent positioning. The results showed that vessels with larger diameters had an increase in fractional flow after opening the stent, which was not seen in the smaller vessels. This highlights the importance of opening larger vessels during percutaneous coronary intervention procedures and suggests there may not be any added benefit to opening smaller vessels that do not feed sizable portions of the myocardium. 

Presenting Authors:

Amanda DeVos, PhD Candidate
Biomedical Engineering, Visible Heart Laboratories
University of Minnesota

Bio: Amanda is a PhD candidate in Biomedical Engineering. She graduated with a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Bradley University in December of 2019.  Amanda's research focuses on bifurcation stenting techniques and outcomes and coronary anatomy and disease state of human hearts including clinically implanted stents and coronary artery disease. Her work involves micro computed tomography, optical coherence tomography, computational reconstructions, multimodal imaging, and Visible Heart® methodologies. She has also interned in Medtronic's Structural Heart group since 2023, where she worked on projects related to transcatheter mitral valve replacement. 

Nevin Gupta, MD Candidate
Visible Heart Laboratories
University of Minnesota

Co-author: Paul Iaizzo

Current medical task trainers lack fidelity to the human body and can be expensive because many destructive tasks use single-use models. Gelatin offers unique properties that can improve the fidelity of task trainers and the learning experience of novice trainees in a cost and waste efficient manner. Gelatin can be recast, allowing for task trainers to be reused or redesigned into additional models without significantly changing the mechanical properties of the material. Gelatin can be colored using water soluble dyes. Insoluble dye can be injected into gelatin to mimic vascularization to replicate human tissue. To test the feasibility of recasting gelatin, we performed tensile tests to measure the elastic modulus of gelatin after several rounds of casting. We found that gelatin retains its elastic modulus through four rounds of casting. To test the colorization and vascularization of gelatin, we created samples of colored and pseudo-vascularized gelatin. We consulted with experts in medical simulation to understand its utility in medical simulation centers compared to existing task trainer materials. This work shows gelatin properties including mechanical properties and visual appearance, that demonstrated gelatin’s utility in the future of medical simulation.

Presenting Authors:

Rahul Sridharan
Mechanical Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Bio: Rahul Sridharan is a senior in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research interests lie in expanding the functionality of robots through new sensing systems, soft materials, and fabrication processes. Having had experience working on medical devices, consumer products, and fusion technology, Rahul is also passionate about building hardware that has a positive impact.

David Wilcoski, BS
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Bio: David Wilcoski recently earned his BS in Bioengineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He is planning on obtaining a PhD focusing on research in endoscopic and minimally invasive surgical devices.
 

Co-authors: Sandra Edward, Athena Ryals, Shandra Jamison and Holly Golecki