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March 28, 2024

BME team named Collegiate Inventors finalist

By PAIGE FRANK | October 20, 2016

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COURTESY OF SARAH LEE Kubanda members will be attending the Collegiate Inventors Competition in November.

Hopkins is no stranger to the Collegiate Inventors Competition, a national competition that awards undergraduate students for cutting-edge and creative inventions. In the past three years, four different Hopkins student projects have placed in the competition.

This year, thanks to an undergraduate biomedical engineering design team, the trend continues. So far, the Hopkins design team has advanced to finalist standing in the competition for their device designed to combat breast cancer in rural Africa.

The project is a continuation of one that began last fall by a biomedical engineering design team, Team Kubanda. The team’s goal was to develop a breast cancer treatment method that could be easily employed in resource-poor areas in Africa.

In the U.S., the five-year breast cancer survival rate is almost 90 percent; however, in South Africa it is only about 40-50 percent. Often in low resource settings, cancer is not even diagnosed until it has metastasized, or spread to other tissues in the body. The team designed a device specifically catered to African communities that uses cryoablation to freeze and destroy cancerous cells.

Senior Bailey Surtees, a member of Team Kubanda last year, is now the leader of the project. She took leadership of the project this summer and now leads her own new team of students. The team includes new members senior Clarisse Hu, junior Serena Thomas, senior Sean Young and junior Tara Blair.

Some of the members from the original Team Kubanda continue to contribute to the new project’s progress. Kubanda’s previous leader, senior Monica Rex, serves on the team’s committee of advisors and sophomore Sarah Lee helps out with prototype testing.

Since last year, the team’s device has gone through layers of design and manufacturing adjustments. The device is designed to deliver cooled gas, specifically carbon dioxide, to the area infected with breast cancer.

There are other similar cryogenic devices on the market in the U.S., however they lack portability due to the use of primarily argon gas, which is not easily accessible in many areas of Africa. Such devices are also not reusable and can run upwards of $2,000.

“We’re motivated by the conviction that everyone deserves a chance at treatment,” Lee said.

The team has designed their device to overcome these current limitations. They use carbon dioxide in their device, as it is more accessible than argon gas, even in remote settings.

Their device also far surpasses those currently on the market — it can be manufactured for less than a dollar and is reusable. Perhaps one of the greatest advantages to the team’s innovation is that it can be implemented in a clinic setting. Because cryoablation only requires local anesthetic, the treatment can be implemented in areas that lack major hospitals.

The device targets cancerous tumors directly, killing the cells by delivering rapidly cooled gas to freeze them. They are currently able to make needles that cool to minus 50 degrees Celsius.

In the upcoming year the team’s goals are to begin implementing in vivo testing. They have officially been approved for animal testing and hope to work towards optimizing the device to work with larger tumors.

The team will compete at the Collegiate Inventors Competition in Washington, D.C. in November. This year will be the competition’s 26th year of recognizing and rewarding students for innovative discoveries.

“We’re really excited about the opportunity to present our project at such a big event, and we really hope to make a difference in the lives of millions of women,” Lee said.

To keep up with the team’s progress and work throughout the year or to learn more about their device visit the team’s website  cryosolutions.wixsite.com/teamkubanda.


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