Students to present new medical device in ACC InVenture Prize competition

As part of a biomedical engineering capstone class, a group of students will represent UNC at the ACC InVenture Prize competition this spring. The competition is an opportunity for students to showcase their entrepreneurial skills.  

ACC universities have representative teams of undergraduates present as entrepreneurs in front of judges in a manner similar to Shark Tank. 

The senior capstone class for UNC’s BME curriculum has students form a working group, find an unmet need in medicine and then develop a medical device that can surpass regulatory and FDA pathways to solve the need. Four UNC seniors, Vignesh Sriram, Bryce Menichella, Karthik Ramakrishnan and Joshua Henderson have been working together since their junior year on their project. The team won second overall at a department-wide entrepreneurship competition called i4 and then decided to continue with their work for their senior capstone project. 

The group researched deep vein thrombosis, a condition involving blood clots forming in deep veins like the lower leg or thigh.

When patients get lower limb surgery, they are at risk of DVT. Ramakrishnan said that post-surgery, individuals are often discharged from the hospital and given aid that might mitigate the risk, such as blood thinners and compression stockings. He said the clots may block blood flow through the vein, which becomes life threatening if the clot travels up to the lungs, as it can then block airflow. 

“There's no warning to it,” Ramakrishnan said. 

Current diagnostic methods to assess DVT are limited to an MRI, CT scan or D-dimer blood test, all of which Henderson said involve needing to be at the hospital. Ramakrishnan said the technology these four students created, DVTect, aims to bridge the gap in medicine between the hospital and the home for patients. 

He said DVTect uses sensors that differentiate the pain associated with DVT. If the device does detect a deep vein thrombosis, the patient can call their doctor immediately and receive attention to address it before it escalates. The seniors are currently working to patent their design. 

“Patients get that peace of mind knowing that they don't have a deep vein thrombosis without actually having to go into the hospital to test for it," Henderson said.

When learning about DVT, Ramakrishnan said the group talked to physicians, nurses, caretakers and patients to identify it as a prevalent issue. Through their interviews, they found many people are either directly affected or know someone affected by the condition. 

Ramakrishnan said the BME program at UNC provided a technical footing for these students. The students' skills in computation, signal processing and signal detection were taken from the classroom and translated into an actual clinical application. Ramakrishnan said another aspect of his experience with BME and his instructors throughout the years is emphasis on empathy in health care.

Menichella said he found the department to be cross-functional as there is a very small group of undergraduates, meaning they are with the same people for a lot of the time, but those people are still specializing in different areas. 

The team also had to prepare for the business aspect of creating a medical device. Henderson said they approached this through different pathways, like Innovate Carolina and N.C. State's innovation and entrepreneurship department, as well as mentors from the Kenan-Flagler Business School. 

On April 2, the group will travel to the University of Notre Dame for the competition, looking not only to place high, but bring the issue of DVT to light. 

“This is something we feel that, you know, with the knowledge that we've gained throughout our three-and-a-half, four years here, we feel that we have the chance of making an impact,” Ramakrishnan said.

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