Discover Brigham offered an immersive experience for audiences with live demonstrations streamed over video conference. Below are highlights from this year’s event. Recordings will be added once available.

Nitin Joshi

John Joseph

A Nasal Spray to Prevent the Transmission of Respiratory Viruses (Nitin Joshi, PhD, and John Joseph, PhD)

  • ” We are developing a pocket-sized nasal spray that can capture and kill inhaled viruses within the nasal cavity.”
  • Joshi and Joseph presented a live demo showing how their newly developed nasal spray captures inhaled virus-like particles

Nobuhiko Hata

Fumitaro Masaki

Robotic Bronchoscopy (Fumitaro Masaki, MS, Nobuhiko Hata, PhD, Franklin King, MS)

  • Researchers took us inside the airways with a new, robotic bronchoscopy device
  • The catheter device, through which a camera or other tools can be threaded, looks and moves like a snake, bending at three different sections to wend its way through the lungs
  • “We can achieve shapes you wouldn’t be able to with a traditional bronchoscope”
  • The team is looking for additional opportunities for collaboration and use in other organs in the body

Hadi Shafiee

Manoj Kumar Kanakasabapathy

Smartphone-based Microscopes with Applications in Infectious Diseases and Fertility Diagnostics (Hadi Shafiee, PhD, Manoj Kumar Kanakasabapathy, M.Tech)

  • Researchers in the Shafiee Lab have been developing new mobile health diagnostic systems with wide-ranging applications
  • These include infertility but also viruses like Zika and SARS-CoV-2
  • The team was able to rapidly pivot to SARS-CoV-2 this spring
  • A video showed the system in action: a sample is put on a microchip, the cartridge is run on a system and everything is done on a single device

James Byrne

Adam Wentworth

Gio Traverso

Injection Molded Autoclavable, Scalable, Conformable (iMASC) System for Aerosol-based Protection (Giovanni Traverso, MB, BChir, PhD, James Byrne, MD, PhD, Adam Wentworth, MS)

  • The team’s goal has been to create an N95 respirator alternative that would be comfortable, flexible and easily re-sterilized
  • Traverso and colleagues created masks out of liquid silicone rubber: the same material used for anesthesia masks and for silicone baking trays
  • The team conducted clinical fit testing and has published on their results. More here.

Vesela Kovacheva

Raphael Cohen

AI-Powered Approach to Maintain Stable Vital Signs During Cesarean Delivery (Vesela Kovacheva, MD, PhD, and Raphael Cohen, BS)

  • 1.2 million cesarean sections are performed in the U.S. annually, even more occur in Europe and globally
  • Spinal anesthesia is common in cesarean sections, but it drops maternal blood pressure in about 75 percent of patients and is associated with adverse events, such as nausea, light-headedness, and a generally unpleasant experience
  • Researchers created a database of 14,000 Brigham patients, using their precise records to generate 220,000 data points and create an algorithm to accurately track low systolic blood pressure, phenylephrine response, and other vital signs

Sara Suliman

Biomarker Discovery Process to Identify Individuals at High Risk of Developing Tuberculosis Disease (Sara Suliman, MPD, PhD)

  • Researchers developed a PCR test with 70 percent accuracy to bypass expensive and time-consuming full genome sequencing diagnostics
  • “We wanted to generate the best predictor for progression of active TB disease and create a diagnostic that can gather that information with something as simple as a finger prick,” said Suliman.
  • The World Health Organization’s 75 percent specificity and 75 percent sensitivity criteria for minimum performance to push a test forward were met by the study’s six identified biomarkers for TB progression (RISK6)

Bowen Chen

Faisal Mahmood

Max Lu

Real-Time, Point-Of-Care Pathology Diagnosis via Embedded Deep Learning (Faisal Mahmood, PhD, Bowen Chen, Max Lu)

  • There are important gaps in cancer diagnostics for communities in low-resource environments
  • The team created a 3D printed microscope with sensitive focus capable of capturing slides, creating heatmaps, and accurately classifying samples
  • “It’s as simple as putting a slide on the stage, adjusting the focus, and letting the programmed machine learning system focus and capture the slide,” said Chen.

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