Biomedical Applications of CAD, FEA, and Rapid Prototyping

General research

Student Researchers

FEA-Guided Pacifier Design: Miriam Rich ‘25, Kelly Stellmacher ‘25, Linda Hu ‘23, Brent Usui ‘23, Michael Costello ‘18, Lisa Park ‘14, Mindy Tieu ‘17, Kelli Shimazu ‘18, Kevin Suzuki ‘17 Mechanical Pylorus Simulator: Aaron Codrington ‘25, Benji Pugh ‘24, Colin Takeda ‘23, Carlos Godinez ‘23, Jong Ho Lee ‘24, Rohith Tatineni ‘24 Improved Test Fixture for MR-Guided Breast Biopsies: Quinn Kelley ‘21, Katrina Gosbee ‘22, Lydia Hodges ‘21, Jamie Santiago ‘22 Patient-Specific Prostate Phantom for Radiotherapy Planning and Treatment: Andrew Schnurr ‘21, Uma Desai ‘19, Max Dietrich ‘19, Ankur Das ‘16, Tatiana Anthony ‘17, Lindsey Andrade ‘17, Kevin Suzuki ‘17, Myles Cooper ‘16, Elena Shaw ’16, Elliott Donlon ’14 , Cullen Ross ‘17, Alex Kessler ‘15; Kelsey Breseman ‘13, Michael Heyns ‘13, Helen Lyons ‘15, Heather Dudley Viscoelastic Material Characterization of Soft Materials: Erica Chin ‘13, Jenny Ma ‘13, Larissa Little ‘14, Ashley Guertin ‘14, Linnea Laux ‘19

External Partners

BU School of Med/BMC: B. Nicholas Bloch, Hong Xiang, Carl Jaffe, Ariel Hirsch, Suhong Yu, Hernan Jara; Tufts School of Dental Medicine: David Tesini

Research Objectives

1)   FEA-Guided Pacifier Design. Use finite element analysis to better understand how the shape and size of a pacifier bulb can affect palatal growth under extended pacifier use to inform the design of bulbs that mitigate malocclusion (bite) problems.

2)   Mechanical Pylorus Simulator. Design, fabricate, and test a mechanical simulator of the pylorus (ring of muscle between the stomach and small intestine) for medical device testing.

3)   Improved Test Fixture for MR-Guided Breast Biopsies. Design, fabricate, and test an improved fixture for MR-image-guided breast biopsies that minimizes vascular constriction of small lesions.

4)   Patient-Specific Prostate Phantom for Radiotherapy Planning and Treatment. Design, fabricate, and test patient-specific prostate (imaging) phantoms to improve prostate cancer treatment and therapy planning. 3D-printed phantoms based on 3D CAD models created from 2D medical images (CT and MR) are used for evaluation and quality assurance of treatment planning.

5)   Viscoelastic Material Characterization of Soft Materials. Determine viscoelastic material parameters for agarose gel models of breast and prostate tissue and correlate the parameter values to quantitative MRI measurements.

Impact

Translating engineering practice in 3D modeling and rapid prototyping to clinical practice.

This research project was made possible through funding from NSF, NASA, and Boston Scientific.