As originally asked by Deepak Kuthyar.

My daughter is currently pursuing 5th semester in medical electronics engineering.I request the group members to give in your sincere advice on the above topic regarding its future prospects.

Deepak Kuthyar
Applications and Product Development Manager at SriSai Multiskills
Thank you Greg for your information will definitely go through his website and contact him for valuable advise in the subject.

Regards,
Nikitha – Student – Medical Electronics,
Ramiahia Institute of Technology,Bangalore – INDIA .

Deepak Kuthyar
Applications and Product Development Manager at SriSai Multiskills
Dear Members,

Wishing you all a happy and prosperous new year 2013. May God bless you and your families with all the good health and prosperiety.

Regards,
Deepak and Nikitha.

Deepak Kuthyar
Applications and Product Development Manager at SriSai Multiskills
Any suggestions to improve the performance of the devices and pressure sensors from all the respected members required.

James Lee
Sr Staff Engineer at Qualcomm
Thanks Srini, I forgot to mention pressure (and vacuum) sensors in my post. One problem with these MEMS devices is that the material being measured is in contact with the sensor and you can have contamination problems that affect the sensor life or performance.

Dr Kesorn Pechrach Weaver
Robotics workshop director at Robotics Ronse
I see a material called “shape memory” has been using inside the body. How it works, is very interesting. At atmosphere temperature we can turn it to any shapes that we like but when it gets inside our body which temperature 35 deg C. It will turn to original shape that we per-programme it.

Srinivasa Moorthy S A
Advisor – Technology & Manufacturing at Precision
Another common application could be using MEMS Pressure sensors for low cost sleep Apnea devices. Today devices for this cost a lot.

James Lee
Sr Staff Engineer at Qualcomm
While I would agree that heart valves are unlikely to be replaced by MEMS. Bio-MEMS still have plenty of related uses. Acoustic MEMS could “hear” the sound of the defective valve. Micro fluidics and chemical sensing MEMS can be used to detect the blood chemistry related to the heart valve problems.

Ramaswami (Rams) Ramanan
International Medical Director, My Heart Scan UK ltd. & MKS Computer systems, Moscow, Russia
Hi,
I am a cardiac surgeon and am reasonably confident that this is not applicable in dealing with dysfunctional heart valves. Nice thought, but sadly no. Valvular dysfunction is very often the result of structural and or mechanical problems and whilst techniques like Cardiac Resynchronisation Therapy have a role, MEMS don’t. Surgery – repair/replacement does help provided it is performed at an early stage before structural changes set in. Hope this helps.
Rams

James Lee
Sr Staff Engineer at Qualcomm
There are several areas of bio-MEMS. To aid in some discussion here is a brief overview of some of them.
1) Micro-fluidics: This is perhaps the largest area of MEMS and is dominated by ink-jet printers but micro-pumps and valves have many bio-MEMS applications.
2) Chemical/cell detection: this is a combination of chemical and mechanical where you create a device/substance which attracts or retains the chemicals/cells you are looking for and the MEMS device detects the change in mass when you have attracted something.
3) Inertial MEMS: Using accelerometers and/or Gyros to detect patient activity and or position. Detecting falls, concussions sleep, unconsciousness, etc. Position can also be used to get posture for proper blood pressure or other life signs measurements. This also includes activity detection like pedometers.
4) Acoustics: Microphones for listening to body sounds, heart beat etc. Ultrasonic transducer arrays for medical imaging.

These are some of the major areas of application for MEMS in biomedical devices. There are many areas of research and product development for all of them. My personal experience is in the development and application of the inertial MEMS. There are sports and military companies doing concussion detection.

If anyone is looking for an expert, who has both medical device and MEMS experience. I am available.

Deepak Kuthyar
Applications and Product Development Manager at SriSai Multiskills
Hi Monia,what did you like in the discussions are you also pursuing the same topic study.

Deepak Kuthyar
Applications and Product Development Manager at SriSai Multiskills
Thank you Mr James for your comments.

James Lee
Sr Staff Engineer at Qualcomm
This may be a little outside my experience. Mems pressure sensors are common as are micro valves like in ink-jet printers. There are many ways to use mems to sense heard function. I don’t know of any actuators being used as valves, but that is just my current view.

Deepak Kuthyar
Applications and Product Development Manager at SriSai Multiskills
My daugther’s question.

I was actually interested in using the mems which have pressure sensors and that could be used for the opening and closure of the heart valves which are dysfunctional. are these being used in the actual world?

James Lee
Sr Staff Engineer at Qualcomm
I have designed both MEMS sensors and other medical devices. I can discuss several applications for mems in medical devices. What are your specific questions?