Biomedical Engineering Research | UCF MAE | 2019-2020

Biomedical Engineering Research D E P A R T M E N T O F M E C H A N I C A L A N D A E R O S PA C E E N G I N E E R I N G U N I V E R S I T Y O F C E N T R A L F LO R I DA • O R L A N D O, F L

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LAB DIRECTORY Biodesign Program in Rehabilitation Engineering Sudesha Pal Lecturer 407-823-0737 spal@ucf.edu mae.ucf.edu/BPRE Biomedical Acoustics Research Lab Hansen Mansy Associate Professor hansen.mansy@ucf.edu 407-823-1655 mae.ucf.edu/BARL Biomedical and Process Modeling Lab Olusegun Ilegbusi Professor olusegun.ilegbusi@ucf.edu 407-823-1157 mae.ucf.edu/Ilegbusi BRaIN Lab Helen Huang Assistant Professor hjhuang@ucf.edu 407-823-4843 mae.ucf.edu/BRAIN Cellular Biomechanics Lab Robert Steward Assistant Professor rstewardjr@ucf.edu 407-823-5608 Computational Biomechanics Lab Luigi Perotti Assistant Professor luigi.perotti@ucf.edu 407-823-4445 mae.ucf.edu/luigiperotti

Computational Mechanics Lab Alain Kassab Professor, Biomedical Engineering Program Director alain.kassab@ucf.edu 407-823-5778 mae.ucf.edu/ ComputationalMechanicsLab FaST Lab Andrew Dickerson Assistant Professor dickerson@ucf.edu 407-823-3524 dickersonlab.com Interventional Robotics Lab Sam Song Associate Professor s.song@ucf.edu 407-823-4847 mae.ucf.edu/irl NeuroMechanical Systems Lab Qiushi Fu Assistant Professor qiushi.fu@ucf.edu 407-705-1420 REAL Lab Hwan Choi Assistant Professor hwan.choi@ucf.edu 407-823-4841 mae.ucf.edu/REAL

CONTENTS Biodesign Program in Rehabilitation Engineering.....................................4 Biomedical Acoustics Research Lab...............................................................6 Biomedical and Process Modeling Lab..........................................................8 Biomechanics, Rehabilitation and Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Lab..............................................................................................................................10 Cellular Biomechanics Lab.................................................................................12 Computational Biomechanics Lab..................................................................14 Computational Mechanics Lab.........................................................................16 Fluids and Structures Lab..................................................................................18 Interventional Robotics Lab............................................................................20 NeuroMechanical Systems Lab.......................................................................22 Rehabilitative Engineering and Assistive Device Lab............................24 Lab Directory..........................................................................................................26

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BPRE Program

Biodesign Program in Rehabilitation Engineering Led by: Sudeshna Pal, Ph.D. For Lecturer Sudeshna Pal, engineering education is just as important as engineering research. Through her Biodesign Program in Rehabilitation Engineering, undergraduate students receive a real-world education via a six-week paid internship at various rehabilitation centers, physical therapy clinics and prosthetic clinics across Central Florida.

By the end of the program, students have a better understanding of user needs in rehabilitative devices, can more effectively comunicate with clinicians and clinical staff, and have the ability to identify unmet patient needs that could potentially be addressed in future engineering courses.

The program is a collaboration between Pal and other UCF researchers, and is sponsored by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health.

Through a second NIH grant, Pal provides an educational training program for students interested in human motion design projects. Using a Vicon motion capture analysis system, which includes multiple cameras, sensors and arm markers, Pal and her students can perform a variety of studies related to biomechanics, including a comparison of the gait in individuals with prosthetics versus those without them.

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BARL Lab

Biomedical Acoustics Research Lab Led by: Hansen Mansy, Ph.D.

What if we could detect and monitor medical problems such as heart failure, vascular stenosis and small bowel obstructions with vibro-acoustic sounds within the body?

In the BARL Lab, Associate Professor Hansen Mansy has spent the past 25 years studying vibro-acoustics, or body sound signatures, a low-cost, noninvasive technology that is suitable for home monitoring and telemedicine. He uses a combination of knowledge in novel sensor design, computerized measurements, digital signal processing and machine learning, medical imaging, and medical sciences to find the acoustic correlates of certain pathologies.

Mansy is developing several revolutionary devices, including one that can detect intracranial pressure by using acoustic sensors to measure the pulsation of the tympanic membrane.

Through a $1.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, he is also creating a device that detects changes in low-frequency chest wall vibrations, a sign of deterioration in patients with heart failure. While this heart monitor would be used by health care providers, the long-term goal is to create a second-generation monitor that could be used for home monitoring.

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BPML Lab

Biomedical and Process Modeling Lab Led by: Olusegun Ilegbusi, Ph.D. Lung cancer treatment is difficult — not only for the patient, but for the doctor as well. The lungs are constantly in motion, so targeting tumors without killing healthy tissue is next to impossible.

But in the BPM Lab, Professor Olusegun Ilegbusi has found the solution to this problem.

In collaboration with aerospace engineering Professor Jihua Gou and a UCF alumnus, Ilegbusi created a 3D lung simulator that can mimic patients’ breathing patterns. With this information, doctors can more precisely treat lung cancer patients, leading to fewer side effects and fewer rounds of treatment.

The trio of researchers also founded SegAna, a startup that develops the patented software for the simulator. SegAna has already been awarded a $250,000 grant from the National Science Foundation and has raised $4 million dollars from investors. The simulator has been tested at six different hospitals across the U.S. and recently received approval from the FDA. Ilegbusi collaborates with UCF researchers to determine how tongue cancer affects patients’ ability to swallow and how the coughing mechanism is affected in individuals with throat cancer or Parkinson’s disease. He has also unlocked the key to stem cell generation by calculating the precise conditions needed for them to grow.

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BRaIN Lab

Biomechanics, Rehabilitation and Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Lab Led by: Helen Huang, Ph.D. When we walk, we don’t think about what it takes to make us move – we just do it. But as we age, walking and maintaining a steady gait can become difficult.

At the BRaIN Lab, Assistant Professor Helen Huang combines her engineering skills with human subject experiments to gain a better understanding of how the brain and body work together to make humans move. The motivation behind her research is the belief that robotic rehabilitation devices can activate or inhibit specific parts of the brain at certain times, thereby improving peoples’ ability to walk.

Using electroencephalography, a treadmill and an algorithm, Huang and her team can map the areas of the brain that become active during walking, and also measure when they activate. Cycling and recumbent stepping are other locomotor tasks that are explored in the lab.

In 2017, Huang was awarded a $1.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to identify to study the differences in brain activity patterns between younger and older adults as they perform certain locomotor tasks. The goal is to find out how each group of adults adapt to perturbations, such as timing, magnitude and direction, that can affect balance while walking, and arm and leg coordination while recumbent stepping.

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CB Lab

Cellular Biomechanics Lab Led by: Robert Steward, Ph.D.

Research happens at the microscopic level in the Cellular Biomechanics Lab. Robert Steward and his research team cross the bridge between mechanical engineering and medicine by studying the mechanical forces that play a role in human health.

Through a grant from the National Institutes of Health, Steward studies the role that endothelial cells — and the mechanical forces they respond to — play in the early stages of cardiovascular disease. He and his team also investigate diabetes and how cells behave in a high glucose environment.

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CBL Lab

Computational Biomechanics Lab Led by: Luigi Perotti, Ph.D.

Millions of patients in the U.S. are affected by chronic myocardial infarction and heart failure.

But because the heart’s motion patterns are poorly characterized and the definition of the heart’s stiffness has not been definitively established, the impact that these medical issues have on the heart isn’t clearly measured or understood.

In the Computational Biomechanics Lab, Assistant Professor Luigi Perotti and his research team strive to unravel these mysteries that surround the mechanics of the heart. They use MRI, anatomical, microstructural and motion data to build models that better allow them to study cardiac kinematics, mechanics and electrophysiology.

Perotti’s goal is to identify measures of the heart’s motions, which may serve as biomarkers to detect the onset and progression of cardiac disease, and can also serve as the basis to construct material models of myocardial tissue. Those models can be used to properly define myocardial stiffness, which is related to several forms of heart of failure and in turn, lead to interventional therapies. This research is backed by a grant from the National Institutes of Health.

Through the use of the same theoretical and modeling tools of continuum mechanics and computational mechanics, Perotti also studies the assemble and maturation of viral capsids.

The end goal is to eventually design deployable, self-morphing, thin shell structures.

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CML Lab

Computational Mechanics Lab Led by: Alain Kassab, Ph.D.

Alain Kassab currently leads a three-year study under the support of American Heart Association Transformative Grant that is utilizing multi-scale computational fluid dynamics modeling to investigate a novel surgical manoeuver aimed at reducing stroke risk in left ventricular assist devices by tailoring the outflow graft implantation. Over the past 10 years, his research group has been engaged in a general program bridging engineering and medicine by utilizing computational modeling to aid in treatment planning of congenital heart disease. These studies include the investigation of the hemodynamics of a novel hybrid approach to the comprehensive stage II operation for single ventricle, the design of a self-powered Fontan circulation, and the detailed hemodynamics resulting from a range of placement of shunts and varying diameters in the hybrid Norwood palliation of single ventricle congenital heart disease.

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FaST Lab

Fluids and Structures Lab Led by: Andrew Dickerson, Ph.D.

The next time you step outside in a mosquito-ridden region, you might not want to wear purple. Mosquitoes like it. But, they’re not very good at finding holes in netting, so you don’t have to worry about them swarming through your screened-in porch. And did you know their legs play just as large a role in takeoff as their wings?

Discoveries like this are made every day by Andrew Dickerson and his research team in the Fluids and Structures Lab, where mechanics and biology collide. Water, insects, mammals and even fruit have been the subject of Dickerson’s studies. He is currently exploring the mechanisms which keeps semi-aquatic mammal fur from being fouled by algae and bacteria, an NSF-funded project.

In a recent study, Dickerson and Assistant Professor Ranajay Ghosh found that citrus peels contain sacs of oil that, when burst, can shoot out at more than 80 feet per second. Practical applications of this discovery, which was covered by the New York Times, include the early detection of bridge failure and an improved delivery of medication for asthmatics.

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IRL Lab

Interventional Robotics Lab Led by: Sam Song, Ph.D.

The field of healthcare has been revolutionized by robotics, and the team at the Interventional Robotics Lab drives that revolution even further.

Led by Sang-Eun “Sam” Song, the IRL researchers develop biomedical devices and tools that improve upon robotic surgery, image-guided intervention and medical expertise pooling.

Current projects include the creation of an orthopedic surgery robot that can precisely transplant healthy tissue into a damaged area, robotic needle guide for MRI-guided prostate biopsies, and an improved uterus manipulator that allows for greater degrees of freedom during laparoscopic surgery.

Additional research focuses on the development of soft robotics that for physical therapy and increased performance in athletes and military personnel, as well as the design of a system that allows for more efficient medical diagnoses and treatment through a network of physicians across the U.S. Song works closely with local hospitals, such as Orlando Health, Nemours Children’s Hospital and the Orlando Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center, to identify the needs of both patients and physicians. He also holds six patents for his medical technology, with three additional patents pending.

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NMS Lab

NeuroMechanical Systems Lab Led by: Qiushi Fu, Ph.D.

When you pick up a pen or grab a water bottle, it may seem like a simple task. But the dexterity of the human hand is more complex than you think.

In the NeuroMechanical Systems Lab, Qiushi Fu and his research team study the chain of command between the brain and the hand, with a specific focus on rehabilitation and prosthetics for those with impaired manual functions.

Through experiments that combine virtual reality, motion capture and robotics techniques, Fu measures neural signals through electromyography and electroencephalography, generated when the hands grasp and manipulate objects.

This data can be used to uncover neural mechanisms underlying sensorimotor dexterity, which provides the scientific basis for fine-tuning prosthetics and creating rehabilitative robotic devices that allow patients to bolster their manual skills.

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REAL Lab

Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Device Lab Led by: Hwan Choi, Ph.D.

When it comes to assistive devices, such as prosthetics and orthotic devices, Assistant Professor Hwan Choi has a different philosophy than most researchers. He believes that they not only improve walking function, but they can provide muscle rehabilitation through daily living as well.

This philosophy drives Choi’s work in the REAL Lab, where he develops devices that can serve both functions. His real-time variable stiffness module give prosthetics a greater range of flexibility and comfort by accounting for factors such as weight, muscle strength and walking patterns.

A second device, the real-time variable timing module, captures and releases stored energy at the appropriate time to allow amputees to propel themselves forward more easily. Both devices are designed to be affordable and to fit on any existing ankle prosthesis, eliminating the need to buy a larger, more expensive device.

Choi is a member of the Biionix Faculty Initiative Cluster, which brings together faculty with engineering, science and medical backgrounds to develop novel technologies that can be used to manufacture prosthetics. In collaboration with Melanie Coathrup, the director of the Biionix cluster, he conducts research on osseointegration, a surgical procedure that integrates the prosthetic with the bone. His long-term research goal is to figure out how to minimize the negative effects of this new type of surgery.

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