Coronavirus: UT-Austin Teams Build Respirators With Spare Parts
AUSTIN, TX — From the "necessiity is the mother of invention" files: University of Texas at Austin researchers have been building makeshift ventilators — for which there is a critical shortage amid the coronavirus pandemic — with readily available materials, including windshield wiper parts.
In an age of pandemic, the dearth of ventilators to help those afflicted with coronvirus infections has been well-chronicled. Reacting to this short supply, UT-Austin research teams are building this new type of ventilaor from cheap, widely available materials to help fill the demand created by the spread of COVID-19, officials said in a press advisory. Like their more mainstream counterparts, the UT-created models are designed to help patients afflicted with the respiratory illness to breathe. They call it the "bridge venilator," that can be replicated and mass-produced by others.
“The problem is that when ICUs fill up, there are no more ventilators,” Thomas Milner, a professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering in the Cockrell School of Engineering who's leading the project, said in a prepared statement. “And you can’t bring in new ICU beds because you don’t have the ventilators.”
Hospitals across Texas had an estimated 3,730 ventilators in 2009 during the H1N1 pandemic, according to research published in 2017, researchers noted — a supply adequate to handle patient needs during mild to moderate pandemic scenarios. But during a more severe scenario, statewide projected demand would top 10,000 ventilators — far exceeding 2009 resources, researchers found.
The UT-created device formally known as the Austin Bridge Breathing Unit uses a manual resuscitator, a common tool called an AMBU (artificial medical breathing unit) bag. The AMBU is a hand-held device approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that includes a bag that fills up with oxygen and a mask that patients wear to receive ventilation. Despite its ingenious design, however, the unit requires a person to compress the bag frequently to help patients breathe — a challenging task at a time when medical personnel across the country are stretched thin due to the coronavirus.
Given the challenge, the team needed to find a way to automatically compress the bag to get oxygen to patients. Enter: A windshield wiper motor pulled from a Toyota Camry. The motor powers a small caster wheel that pushes down on the bag to control oxygen flow. Four potentiometers control the respiration rate, the volume of oxygen given to patients, the time to inhale and the maximum pressure, researchers explained.
“Essentially, we are replacing the human hand that would normally depress against the bag to inject oxygen into the patient’s lungs,” Milner said.
Click here to see the ventilator in action
Milner said a colleague came up with the idea to use a windshield wiper motor during a brainstorming session, finding the units to be readily available, reliable and inexpensive. After consulting with a local mechanic to learn the ins and outs of the motor, the new element was put in place. The research team now is testing the device on a mannequin from UT’s Dell Medical School along with test lungs provided by UT Health San Antonio, school officials said.
After perfecting a prototype, university officials said the plan is to provide an open license to the design so that anyone can make their own low-cost, reliable ventilator. Researchers and a team from Dell Medical School now are in discussion with numerous manufacturing partners — with a goal of quickly producing at least 2,000 ventilators — officials said.
Update: Austin’s Unorthodox Ventures has committed to producing five prototype units for the team to stress test, university officials said.
Because the components of the device are regulated individually, Milner expressed hopes for approval in a matter of weeks rather than months. Buoying such hopes is a move by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in issuing an Emergency Use Authorization protocol to speed up production of ventilators and other respiratory devices.
“Really, all we are doing is making what we would argue is a simple modification of how you push on the bag,” Milner noted.
Milner's team at UT-Austin includes Arnold Estrada, Scott Jenny, Nitesh Katta, Aydin Zahedivash, Tim Phillips and Austin McElroy. Numerous medical doctors are also contributing to the project, including Dr. Paul Harford from Dell Medical School, and Drs. Stephen Derdak and Marc Feldman and respiratory therapist Richard Wettstein, all from UT Health San Antonio. The group is part of a Bridge Ventilator Consortium, headed by Dr. Brian Wong, assistant chair of the Department of Otolaryngology in the School of Medicine at the University of California, Irvine, that aims to produce alternative ventilators amid a nationwide shortage.
Milner pointed to impressive efforts across the nation's academic landscape in quickly pivoting to COVID-19 projects after most research was shut down by the pandemic — a work stoppage not unlike that affecting commerce in Texas and well beyond in efforts to practice physical distancing to avert potential illness spread. Milner noted another recent effort related to the pandemic that emerged from the University of Minnesota last week, when a cardiac anesthesiologist went “full-on MacGyver,” building a ventilator prototype out of $150 worth of spare parts found in a medical device lab.
This article originally appeared on the Austin Patch
