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Student Innovator at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Aims To Personalize Medicine With Implantable Sensors
Rebecca Wachs Is One of Three Finalists for the
$30,000 2013 Lemelson-Rensselaer Student
Prize
Rebecca Wachs has invented a new implantable sensor with the
ability to wirelessly transmit data from the site of a knee
replacement, spinal fusion, or other orthopedic surgery.
Simple, robust, and inexpensive to make, her sensor holds the
promise of advancing personalized medicine by giving doctors an
unprecedented wealth of information about how an individual
patient is healing.
Wachs, who in January earned her doctoral degree in
biomedical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute, is one of three finalists for the 2013 $30,000
Lemelson-Rensselaer Student Prize. A public ceremony announcing
this year’s winner will be held at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March
5, in the auditorium of the Rensselaer Center for Biotechnology and
Interdisciplinary Studies. For more information on the
ceremony visit: http://www.eng.rpi.edu/lemelson
Wachs’ project is titled “Enabling Personalized Medicine
Through an Elementary and Robust Implantable Sensor.” Her
adviser is Eric Ledet,
professor in the Department of Biomedical
Engineering at Rensselaer.
Researchers have endeavored since the 1960s to extract
information from sensors implanted in the body. Nearly all of
the solutions, however, have been hampered by the requirement
of complex electronics, antennas, frequent modifications to the
implant, or the need for external power sources such as
batteries. The devices end up being impractical and too
expensive. Because of these limitations, surgeons today usually
rely on X-rays or MRIs to monitor the progress of their
patient’s recovery following an orthopedic procedure. Most
diagnoses therefore rely on subjective observation instead of
objective data.
This is significant because more than 500,000 total knee
replacements and 400,000 spinal fusion procedures are performed
every year in the United States. Overall, musculoskeletal
conditions result in 500 million lost work days annually, at an
estimated cost of nearly $375 billion.
Wachs’ patent-pending solution to this challenge was to
create a simple, practical sensor to provide rich, objective
data on which to make diagnoses about surgery sites. She
invented a wireless sensor that needs no battery, no external
power, and requires no electronics within the body. Instead,
the sensor is powered by an external device, which is also used
to capture the sensor data.
Measuring only 4 millimeters in diameter and 500 microns
thick, the wireless sensors look like small coils of wire and
are attached to commonly used orthopedic musculoskeletal
implants such as rods, plates, or prostheses. Once in the body
as part of the implant, the sensor can monitor and transmit
data about the load, strain, pressure, or temperature of the
healing surgery site. The sensor is scalable, tunable, and easy
to configure so that it may be incorporated into many different
types of implantable orthopedic devices.
Additionally, the sensors could prove valuable during the
actual surgery procedure to implant the prosthetic device. In
real time, surgeons could get objective data to help guide
their decisions about the correct sizing and placement of the
prosthetic they are implanting in the patient.
Overall, Wachs’ invention could give surgeons the
opportunity to make surgical decisions and post-operative
diagnoses for individual patients based on objective,
personalized, and real-time data. Her sensors are simple and
inexpensive to produce, require no external power source, yet
are robust and durable. The data produced by these sensors
should arm physicians with powerful new information for
determining when recovering patients are able to return to work
without a risk of further injury.
Growing up, Wachs had a natural talent for inventing and
building things. Her first real interest in engineering stemmed
from her high school physics class, the teacher of which
introduced her to the idea of mechanical engineering. As an
undergraduate student studying mechanical engineering, she was
fascinated with the role of mechanics in the human body, which
inspired her to pursue her master’s and doctoral degrees in
biomedical engineering.
When not in the lab or classroom, Wachs likes to play
soccer, cook, and entertain friends and family. She is also an
avid reader and likes to discuss what she’s reading with fellow
members of her book club.
Wachs’ husband, Bobby Wachs, and their dog, Maggie, are
cheering for her to win the $30,000 Lemelson-Rensselaer Student
Prize. In her hometown of Guilderland, N.Y., Wachs’ father, an
accountant, and mother, a nurse, are also rooting for Wachs, as
are her two sisters.
Wachs received her bachelor’s degree in mechanical
engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and her
master’s degree and doctoral degree in biomedical engineering
from Rensselaer. This month, she began working in her role as
senior research and development engineer in the sports medicine group at RTI
Biologics Inc. in Alachua, Fla.
About the $30,000 Lemelson-Rensselaer Student
Prize
The $30,000 Lemelson-Rensselaer Student Prize is
funded through a partnership with the Lemelson-MIT Program,
which has awarded the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize to
outstanding student inventors at MIT since 1995.
About The Lemelson-MIT Program
Celebrating innovation, inspiring
youth
The Lemelson-MIT Program celebrates outstanding
innovators and inspires young people to pursue creative lives
and careers through invention.
Jerome H. Lemelson, one of U.S. history’s most prolific
inventors, and his wife, Dorothy, founded the Lemelson-MIT
Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994.
It is funded by The Lemelson Foundation and administered by the
School of Engineering. The Lemelson Foundation uses the power
of invention to improve lives by inspiring and enabling the
next generation of inventors and invention-based enterprises to
promote economic growth in the United States and social and
economic progress for the poor in developing countries. http://web.mit.edu/invent/
Read about past winners of the $30,000 Lemelson-Rensselaer
Student Prize:
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Published
February 27,
2013 |
Contact: Michael Mullaney
Phone: (518) 276-6161
E-mail: mullam@rpi.edu |
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