INNOVATION November-December 2021

F E A T U R E

I t’s often said that travel broadens the mind. It can also change lives. Born in Iran, Hadi Mohammadi, P.Eng., was about to complete his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at Tehran’s Sharif University of Technology when he decided to take a sabbatical year in Canada. Here, he met scientists and scholars who showed him a whole other side of engineering that so caught his interest, he signed up for a second Ph.D. before he’d even finished his first, this time in biomedical engineering at the University of Western Ontario. “That was the beginning of my journey in Canada,” said Mohammadi. From Western, he went on to a post- doctoral fellowship shared between the University of Calgary and Harvard

Medical School and worked in the oil and gas industry before winning a faculty position at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan (UBCO) campus. “It was a great opportunity for me,” Mohammadi said. “On this campus, I found a platform to make all my wishes come true. I’d had ideas before, ideas I knew had potential, but not the space, the infrastructure, the access to top- notch colleagues and the most talented national and international students, that I needed to make them real.” Mohammadi’s primary focus at his UBCO Heart Valve Performance Laboratory (HVPL) is the next generation of prosthetic heart valves. In 2019, his lab developed a heart valve made out of nanocomposite biomaterial that can be

inserted using small incisions instead of opening the patient’s chest. While transcatheter heart valves are not new, existing versions all use animal tissue, which are not as durable as HVPL’s synthetic heart valve, and can lead to a number of issues, including coronary obstruction and kidney damage. An even more recent HVPL invention is a mechanical bileaflet heart valve—a pair of semi-circular leaflets that pivot on hinges to replicate the way a real heart valve works in ensuring consistent, one-way blood flow. The valve’s curving design helps lessen the risk of both blood clots and backflow, two problems associated with the artificial valves now in use. But because his first Ph.D. was about vibration in mechanical systems, Mohammadi is also using his lab to connect his interests by exploring how low-frequency, high-amplitude mechanical vibration can be absorbed and isolated in mechanical systems and medical devices. And this second focus has also led to a number of significant breakthroughs, including a quick, inexpensive test that can help oil and gas companies prevent pipeline spills simply by using a small machine to tap on above-ground pipes and measuring the resulting vibrations. A healthy pipeline vibrates differently than one that is rusted or cracked and in danger of spilling oil or gas. The same tap test can also be used on people to identify areas of diminished bone density, critical to identifying and treating a number of bone conditions, including osteoporosis. This past summer, Mohammadi announced his latest invention, a device that lessens hand tremors in people living with essential tremor—a neurological disorder that causes involuntary and rhythmic trembling, usually in the hands—or with Parkinson’s disease, which often starts with a slow, continuous tremor in one hand.

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