Engineering student designing a new anticoagulant monitoring device

[Protimenow]

Which requires blood to leave the body, be exposed to a trigger and clotting time measured. Do you understand how that is measured?

You seem to be talking about a magic method of determining this under the skin.

No. This doesn't sound like a method that reads through the skin. What it sounds like to me is a system that uses a plastic 'strip' that has a reservoir for blood. The blood (probably a big drop) goes onto the strip, and the strip goes into the machine. Somehow, through some kind of refractive sensor (an optical sensor of some type), the clot, or some other marker, is detected. This sounds somewhat similar to CoaguChek, which looks at impedance changes (IIRC) rather than formation of an actual clot (which Coag-Sense does).

I'm still unclear about how a clot can form quickly enough for the user not to just get tired of waiting for something to happen (if no reagent is used), or how INR is calculated if there's no divisor. Perhaps they'll figure out some implicit standard that is characteristic for their method of testing that can be used to calculate INR.

I'm not going to theorize about how they'll actually make the leap from clotting time detection and INR, but it's clear that there WILL be a drop of blood that is used for testing.

 

[pellicle]

We want to minimize any points of failure and reduce costs by not requiring chemical test strips that can expire. We're still working on the design and seeing if this can actually work.

so can you even discuss the overall basics of what goes on here?

 

[pellicle]

No. This doesn't sound like a method that reads through the skin.

indeed (for that would be impossible for a number of reasons), however I think I must have conflated a few posts by other peoples suggestions.

However I get the feeling that this person

• has utterly no clue about the chemistry involved (let alone be able to come up with something better that won't expire
• has little to no idea what the major current techniques are
• has probably not even read the basics of how coagulation is presently measured (I doubt they've even read and understood the wikipedia page on it

To be honest its about high school science fair presentation (with no practical bits on display).

 

[V__]

What it sounds like to me is a system that uses a plastic 'strip' that has a reservoir for blood. ...

I'm still unclear about how a clot can form quickly enough for the user not to just get tired of waiting for something to happen (if no reagent is used), or how INR is calculated if there's no divisor.

The coagulation time outside the body looks non-trivial. From a brief look, there is a temperature dependence for the blood outside the body. But it is not monotonic. And there is a container surface dependence. Maybe these factors can be exploited to get a reasonable test time. Would certainly need to be controlled well for the method to work. (And I hope there are better references than what I found.)

 

[pellicle]

Would certainly need to be controlled well for the method to work. (And I hope there are better references than what I found.)

These things are already well worked out in the Coaguchek (temperature, exposure to reagent, vesicles volume..)

http://cjeastwd.blogspot.com/2023/03/roche-coaguchek-xs.html

 

[Protimenow]

I'm sure Roche did tons of research on properties that can be used to detect coagulation - impedance, refraction, resistance, and whatever else they could think of. They probably ruled out refraction - the method that this student is looking at.

Coag-Sense does it differently, with a wheel on the strip that spins until it doesn't (a clot blocking the wheel). An optical sensor detects when the wheel stops turning.

Physical and electrical properties have been detected and incorporated into the detection of prothrombin time (and INR). I have a hard time believing that something as obvious as refraction haven't already been carefully studied and rejected.

 

[V__]

These things are already well worked out in the Coaguchek (temperature, exposure to reagent, vesicles volume..)

I'm sure Roche did tons of research on properties that can be used to detect coagulation - impedance, refraction, resistance, and whatever else they could think of. They probably ruled out refraction - the method that this student is looking at.

I think you guys are correct. However, for the undergraduate students' project making a working new product is probably not a requirement. If the development leads to a new thing, great. If not, they will still learn a lot And once in a while tinkering does lead to a new thing.

 

[pellicle]

However, for the undergraduate students' project making a working new product is probably not a requirement.

agreed ... perhaps he should have declared something like:
"we are a bunch of undergrads and really just doing an assignment to help us learn about the topic (of which we've done very little research and almost no background reading)"

rather than:

I’m a senior Biomedical Engineering student at the University of Texas at San Antonio. I along with 4 other colleagues are currently doing our senior design project where we design and engineer a medical device.​

that bold is mine.

However its emerged that he's a junior (at university in the path to anywhere academic) by any other than his metrics. To me the questions felt more like he's probably senior level at high school (which we use here for some of the grade 12 students). But at where I went to uni (and that's been a couple of Uni's) nobody undergraduate gets called "senior" ... maybe after you've graduated (post-graduate) you may call yourself senior (but where I studied nobody would even think that way, as the more you know the more you know you don't know).

 

[V__]

But at where I went to uni (and that's been a couple of Uni's) nobody undergraduate gets called "senior" ...

It might be a language difference (*). In the US the different years have labels: 1st - freshman, 2nd - sophomore, 3rd - junior, 4th - senior.

That said, it would've been better to say something like "senior year". And to describe the scope of the task better, as you pointed out. I can sort of guess it from experience, but one should not assume it would be clear to anybody outside academia.

(*) We are not supposed to be united by something as variable as language, are we?

 

[pellicle]

(*) We are not supposed to be united by something as variable as language, are we?

English as a tower of Babel ;-)

In Oz we say: first year student, second year student and third year student. In the case of people doing part time our course codes typically start with 1 in first year, 2 in second year and 3 in third year (which is the final year).
So if you're a part time student who's doing their 4th year of enrolment but has a majority of second year subjects you'll say "I'm in my second year.
*also, 2xx subjects typically have a dependency on one or more 1xx subjects to enable enrolment in that subject - we call that prerequsite subjects. Typically to "graduate" you need to have

1. sufficient credit points of required level 3 subjects to enable a major
2. sufficient credit points of entire study completed
3. sufficient GPA (the average of marks for each of the subjects)

 

[Protimenow]

Maybe when he described himself as a senior, he failed to indicate that he was 80 years old?

 

[pellicle]

In the US the different years have labels: 1st - freshman, 2nd - sophomore, 3rd - junior, 4th - senior.

for whatever reason this is the first time I've decided to actually look this up (because frankly its a weird word for me and I've only ever heard it in the US context)

Contextually, classicism had a high influence on the pursuit of education at these universities, so students frequently conducted their reading and writing in Greek and Latin. Thus, the term “sophomore” comes from the Greek words “sophos,” meaning clever or wise, and “moros,” which means foolish​

https://dailyfreepress.com/2021/09/17/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-sophomore/
so now (at least) I know.

 

[Protimenow]

Years ago, I saw something about sophomore that said something like 'undecided about what they're going to do.' If something is described as 'sophomoric,' it's not a flattering description, suggesting that whatever the 'sophomoric' thing was, it wasn't particularly well thought out.

Wow. We've moved away from this original focus, haven't we?

 

[pellicle]

Wow. We've moved away from this original focus, haven't we?

Not that that occurs here on threads that have run their course

 

[V__]

Wow. We've moved away from this original focus, haven't we?

Certainly. But that's probably still fun?

 

[pellicle]

But that's probably still fun?

and certainly at least a little informative ... anyway, almost nobody uses the "off topic" forum (not least because its not on topic ;-)