A team of Albert Nerken School of Engineering students placed second in the Design by Biomedical Undergraduate Teams (DEBUT) Challenge sponsored by the National Institutes for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and higher education nonprofit VentureWell. The annual competition, now in its 14th year, challenges undergraduate students to devise technologies that address unmet health needs.

The Cooper Union team, led by Class of 2025 electrical engineering alumni Seyeon Park and Jay Williams, and with contributions from mechanical engineering junior David Brokhin and senior Jaehyeon Park, were recognized for their AV Fistula Thrill-o-Meter, which addresses problems faced by people with kidney diseases. Their device detects the vibrational “thrill” produced by an arteriovenous fistula (AVF), a surgically created bypass between an artery and vein. The Thrill-o-Meter identifies altered blood flow in AVFs that may lead to stenosis, which is the narrowing of blood vessels, and thrombosis, which is the formation of sudden blood clots, by using sensors to record local vibrations. These vibrations are filtered and denoised to remove systemic vibrations like heartbeats, resulting in a detection tool for abnormal blood flow.

“NIH’s DEBUT Challenge is a showcase for the remarkable creativity and ingenuity of undergraduate engineering students across the country, and the NIH congratulates the award winners for developing exceptionally innovative and promising technologies for longstanding health care challenges,” said NIBIB Director Bruce J. Tromberg.

Seyeon Park and Jay Williams initiated the work, developing the first sensor prototype as part of their senior design capstone under the advisement of Sam Keene, John and Mary Manuck Distinguished Professor of Design, and Stuart Kirtman, professor of electrical engineering. David Wootton, professor of mechanical engineering, and Michelle Rosen, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, helped to advise David Brokhin and Jaehyeon Park as they worked on the experimental validation system. Evren Azeloglu, a professor of medicine who directs the Systems Bioengineering Lab at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, also helped the Cooper team to develop the concept and better understand the clinical problem. The group was also recognized at the annual conference of the Biomedical Engineering Society San Diego, CA in October. 

This year the DEBUT Challenge had a record number of participants—more than 120 teams representing 67 universities. In addition to a $15,000 cash prize, the Cooper team will have the opportunity to take a course called DEBUT Concept to Clinic: Commercialization-Innovation (dC3i). The dC3i course offers guidance on how to commercialize a healthcare device as well as the chance to receive feedback on their device from a variety of business advisors.