Doctor-techie duo works on novel medical devices

Hyderabad: A city-based doctor is striving to work out new methods to help patients prone to heart attack to have a better treatment facility.

An assistant professor at MNR Dental College and Hospital, Dr N Vijay Kumar has roped in E Siva Prasad, an engineer, to make use of the combined prowess and insights. Now, Siva is so enthused by the research, he is helping the doctor full-time.

Dr N Vijay Kumar started a project that could help people survive from a heart attack has certainly made a mark in the history of science. When IIT Hyderabad was looking to collaborate with medical professionals to design and make novel medical equipment and tools, they came across Dr Kumar who happened to attend a seminar held by them.

Their enquiries raked up a keen interest in him to come out with something that would be of great help to the patients. Consultations and discussions soon led to IIT people and Dr Kumar zero in on a new 3-D bone grafting technique and CPR machine that overcomes costly errors likely during manual resuscitation.

Currently, pursuing his external PhD project in IIT Hyderabad, a Prime Minister's research fellowship awardee for his 3D bone graft printing, Dr Vijay Kumar said, "One project deals with a 3D-printed bone graft development and the other deals with a life-saving device for cardiac patients.

The customised bone graft helps in replacing the bone when a person meets with an accident. Instead of taking a replacement from a body part, this can be used as a replacement which will reduce surgeries.

The second project is the CPR machine which deals with heart attack. The possibility of heart attack is anywhere and everywhere and very few people know how to perform CPR manually. Because of possibility of human error, patients may be at risk. My device saves time. It automatically starts pumping and keeps your heart and other organs in a perfusion state. This keeps pumping till the patient reaches the nearby hospital."

Explaining his zeal about medical engineering, Dr Vijay further adds, "I actually started my work from IIT Hyderabad. I did this out of interest as a PhD project and I developed two prototypes. But due to few flaws in the machine, I had to work on it again. Recently in February I got a government grant of Rs 2 lakh and we could develop the raw prototype of the machine. And to make this project successful we would need more help from the government."

Dr Vijay said that it would take another four months to fully develop his machines. At present, both the keen minds are working on utilising the IOT (Internet of Things) to improve their devices further.