Prinicipal Investigator: Yao Sun, MD, PhD
Team Members: Kaelan Schorger (Engineer)
Problem: In the United States, approximately 72,000 babies annually require ventilation for severe respiratory disease. In developing countries, respiratory failure is still a leading cause of death in premature infants. Current methods of ventilating neonates, however, are extremely expensive and have several clinical drawbacks. On the other hand, current “noninvasive” methods of respiratory support such as continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) devices cannot support sicker patients. In this era of the COVID-19 pandemic, creating a ventilation device an order of magnitude cheaper than current machines is particularly appropriate.
Proposed Solution: NeoTune is a patient-customizable, noninvasive high-frequency ventilation device that may provide the ideal approach to respiratory support in critically ill neonates. As a novel augmentation of bubble CPAP, the mechanical design of NeoTune seeks to induce pressure amplitude changes that produce the high-frequency effect used by current mechanical high-frequency ventilators.