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When paramedics arrive on scene, they encounter a woman exhibiting classic signs of a stroke: she’s confused, slurring her speech, and having difficulty moving one of her arms. Paramedics know that time is of the essence: every minute a stroke patient goes without treatment means more brain cells die and the patient’s prognosis worsens.
But treatments vary depending on whether the stroke is caused by a blocked blood vessel or bleeding in the brain, and administering the wrong treatment can make the patient’s condition worse, so paramedics can do little other than transport the patient to hospital where they can be examined by medical staff.
A team of students from the University of California, San Diego hopes to change the outcome of this story that depicts such a common scenario. Stroke is the second leading cause of death worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. The UC San Diego team wants to start a company that will provide paramedics and emergency room staff with new portable, cost-effective tools to quickly diagnose stroke patients and speed up treatment.
The team’s presentation won first place at the National Nanotechnology Entrepreneurship Competition (NTEC), which also included competition from Stanford University, Virginia Tech, and other organizations in the National Nanotechnology Collaborative Infrastructure Network. This marks the third consecutive year that the UC San Diego team, mentored by Yves Theriault, education and outreach program manager at UC San Diego’s Qualcomm Institute (QI), has won the competition.
This year’s group is made up of Freddy Garcia, a nanoengineering doctoral student in the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering; Beata Zamani, an undergraduate nanoengineering student in the Jacobs School of Engineering (class of 2024); and Laura Charia, an undergraduate cognitive science student in the UC San Diego School of Social Sciences (class of 2024).
“We have a great team,” says Theriault, who this year added Garcia’s doctoral supervisor, Oscar Vásquez Mena, an associate professor in the Department of Chemical and Nanoengineering at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego, as a mentor. “This is winning technology.”
“New Advantages”
The group’s proposal grew out of Garcia’s interest in metamaterials — materials engineered to have properties rarely found in nature — and he realized that using them in conjunction with existing ultrasound techniques could overcome current barriers to imaging the brain.
“The novelty here is the metamaterial we’re making,” Garcia says. “Ultrasound can travel through the skin, there’s no problem there. But when you come across a bone, like the skull, the ultrasound can’t get through. It just diffracts a lot. But if you have a metamaterial between the skull and the ultrasound, you can match the impedance of the skull and allow the ultrasound to get through.”
As part of the NTEC program, students sought out and interviewed potential customers to research the market for products that could result from the technology.
After completing 21 interviews, the students decided to focus on imaging for the rapid diagnosis of stroke. Although there were competitors in this field, such as portable CT scanners, these were expensive, bulky, and energy- and staff-intensive compared to the ultrasound machines the students wanted to provide.
“We can basically make wearable headgear. [a patient]”You can have extended brain imaging and blood flow monitoring while wearing this, which is a really novel benefit. Making this portable and accessible is really the niche we’re targeting,” Zamani said.
A winning formula
The NTEC competition culminated with a virtual showcase event where each team presented a two-minute video about their work to a panel of judges.
“The competition was strong, very tough,” Garcia said. “It was more competitive than last year because there were 15 groups last year instead of 10.”
But in the end, the University of California, San Diego team emerged victorious.
Garcia gives credit to his teammates. “Vita and Laura really took the ideas that we had and transformed them through their presentations into something that was easy to understand and fun to watch,” he says. “Everybody had great technology. It was interesting and cutting edge. But at the end of the day, if you can’t distill it down to two minutes, you’re missing out on a lot of people. So our strength is the creativity, the ideas, the technology, the innovation, and distilling it all into a two-minute video. I’m really proud to have these people on my team.”
“Being able to collaborate with your team, especially when deadlines are looming, and communicate effectively with your audience, investors and end users is really important,” Zamani added.
In addition to praising her teammates, Sharia also noted the group’s origins in Nano3, a cleanroom facility at Qualcomm Labs. “I feel it’s important to trace our group back to Nano3 and Qualcomm Labs,” she said. “Without them, I would never have met everyone on the team, including Freddie, Vita and Eve.”
Move forward
Though the team is at a crossroads in some ways (Charya and Zamani are graduating, while Garcia is pursuing his PhD), the startup continues to evolve.
In addition to the NTEC program, Garcia noted that the business idea is being honed through two other entrepreneurship programs: the just-concluded National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps (I-Corps) and the University of California, San Diego’s Global Entrepreneurship Institute’s MedTech Acceleration Program.
“The MedTech Accelerator covers the basics for entrepreneurs and what we need to look into,” Garcia said. “It goes into great depth, including FDA regulations, so that’s been really helpful.”
Meanwhile, as they look towards graduation, Chalia and Zamani are grateful for how much they learned from the NTEC competition.
“[NTEC] “This is an opportunity that I hope every student gets to experience at least once in their life,” says Chalia, “not only do they get to work on their own startup, but they also get to hear and learn from what other teams around the country are doing.”
“So much of the engineering curriculum is focused on teaching you theory, how to be an engineer, and all the technical details,” Zamani says. “Being more involved in the entrepreneurship side of things helped me understand how to combine technical knowledge with business strategy to create powerful technologies that really change the world.”
Learn more about the nanotechnology facilities and internships at Qualcomm Laboratories at the University of California, San Diego.
