INNOVATION January-February 2016

“The main goal of first-in-human is to show safety,” explains Chaplin. Procedures with the new technology and software meant each procedure still took three hours, but shows potential to drop to 60 minutes. No complications arose during the procedures nor in the patients since then. This year, they plan to bring a slightly modified version to Switzerland and Germany, where they will work with five doctors in four hospitals to treat 60 patients. Once Kardium earns the CE Mark, which would indicate the device complies with the essential requirements, performance levels and standards of relevant European legislation, they plan to start approval processes for the device under the US Federal Drug Administration and Health Canada. Not surprisingly, the project has been a wellspring of invention. Some 50 patents stemming from the device are in process, and Kardium expects more than 80 by project’s end. Tiny motors power helping hands Similarly to Kardium, Victoria, BC-based company Firgelli strives to make its products as small and easy to use as possible to improve people’s lives, but it does so with a very different reach. Founded in 2005, the company specialises in the micro-motion market. They offer motorised parts that perform highly precise back-and-forth movement, used as components of more intricate equipment. Their direct-current linear actuators move using electrical power, while their linear servos move according to feedback they receive from within the larger machine. “Our linear actuators and servos are used as components for many low- to medium- volume products that require a controlled linear motion,” says Ruaridh Mackinnon, EIT, an electrical engineer at Firgelli. A common use for their products is as muscle analogs—muscles, after all, are bundles of fibres instructed via electrical signal to shorten or lengthen. Firgelli products have helped supply the global movement to create top-notch, open-source, and—most importantly—low-cost robotic hands for amputees. This year, Mackinnon shrank the size and ease of use of their most compact product, allowing for increasingly finely

anatomy and electrical activity of the entire atrium all at once, and then cauterise individual areas as needed. “The first thing people think is: Why not use a balloon inside the atrium?” says Kardium’s mechanical engineering team lead Ashkan Habibi Sardari, P.Eng. Unfortunately, “very quickly, you would stop blood flowing to the patient.” Any structure containing the electrodes must continually let blood flow freely. Kardium’s in-house machine shop allowed engineers to create dozens of prototypes. The team started with a holey balloon design (think whiffle balls), but that proved infeasible. Next was an umbrella style, which expanded from its narrow cylindrical travel configuration into a semi-sphere upon reaching the heart. After several attempts, that design was abandoned because it could not house enough electrodes and its ribs were too long to navigate veins safely. The team made a big step when they came up with a half-basket design that could scan the surface, burn as needed, and rotate to the other section. From there, it was a natural step to create a full basket, one that folds into a small stack for delivery through the vein and then expands its electrode array throughout the whole atrium. They finalised the design in 2011 and froze it in 2013. Their product, the Globe® Mapping and Ablation System, contains about 300 gold electrodes, each five millimetres across, mounted on flexible electronic circuits fastened to stainless steel ribs. Closed, the basket fits through a seven-millimetre sheath. Inside the atrium, it expands to a diameter of sixty- seven millimetres. “When we show this to doctors, their jaws drop,” says project engineer Daniel Weinkam, P.Eng. “It’s a leap of an order of magnitude in terms of the amount of information provided about the anatomy and electrical activity of the heart.” After a year of testing and gaining necessary authorisations, the device was ready for action. A team travelled to Switzerland, where they worked with world-leading electrophysiologist Dr. Hans Kottkamp at Zurich’s Hirslanden Hospital to use the device on nine approved (and consenting) patients.

Companies and individuals use Firgelli's linear actuators and servos to develop products that require controlled linear motion, including prosthetic hands. P hoto © O pen B ionics .

controlled moving parts. Their new PQ12 integrates the position control and motor driver without affecting the actuator— that is, the part that performs the precise movement—making them compatible with hobby and low-cost microcontrol systems like Arduino, Phidgets, and Raspberry Pi. By combining 3D printing with open- source technology and affordable (but not 3D-printable) critical components, people can build their own prosthetics. Above all, amputees can improve or replace individual parts on their own, rather than relying on companies’ timelines and costs. Damage control Nearby, at the University of Victoria, a tissue engineer is also creating small components that mimic nature’s form and function. Whereas Firgelli’s efforts focus on a body’s extremities, Stephanie Willerth’s research is more central. Biomedical engineering professor Stephanie Willerth, P.Eng., is developing a technique in the global effort to address a notoriously tough challenge: returning function lost in spinal injuries. “When the central nervous system is broken, the body puts up barriers and tries to save the tissue that’s left,” explains Willerth. “Its low regenerative capacity means it goes into triage rather than repair. Were it to rewire injuries wrongly, it could restore feeling without function”— rendering, say, a paraplegic person’s legs excruciating but not functional.

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