Doctoral student’s blood clot device dominates innovations awards
PhD candidate Asyraaf Ahmad
A Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute PhD student has helped design a device that scooped the major prizes at an inaugural medical innovations event, med_hack.
Asyraaf Ahmad and his team won three prizes at the event; the Grand Prize, People's Choice Prize and the Secret Prize – an invitation to network and pitch the idea to hundreds of investors at an entrepreneurial gala dinner.
The team, called AutoPatch, designed a system that would help people using the anticoagulant medication warfarin manage their own treatment. Warfarin counters thrombosis or blood clots, which can lead to heart attack and stroke if left untreated.
Warfarin users must adhere to a strict diet and lifestyle to prevent changes to their blood clotting capabilities, requiring trips to the doctor to update their dosage. This new device would instead allow patients to perform a finger-prick blood test at home, which then automatically determines a dosage. This is communicated to a disposable patch worn by the patient, which delivers the exact amount of drug needed through the skin.
The device could potentially be broadened for use with other types of drugs.
Asyraaf said he thought of the idea after talking to a young woman at med_hack, Junlin Ng, a chemical engineer, who has a heart condition. The pair were joined in the team by three biomedical engineers from Melbourne University; Sarah Fink, Tim Allison-Walker and Anu Sabu.
“I remember reading about medical patches before and I kind of said ‘why don’t we create a patch to target one of Junlin’s therapies’, which was warfarin,” Asyraaf said.
Med_hack, held late last year, brought together students and professionals from medical, engineering, IT, business and design backgrounds to brainstorm ideas for new medical devices.
AutoPatch was mentored by Monash University’s Associate Professor Christopher Wright, a senior intensive care specialist, whom Asyraaf said gave the team the advice, motivation and confidence to proceed with the idea.
The team was thrilled to win the three awards.
“After we won the first award, the People’s Choice, we thought ‘at least we got something’. We didn’t expect to win the other two!”
Asyraaf is currently undertaking an accelerator program at STC Australia with the team to develop the device.
He will start his PhD in March, supervised by Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute Deputy Director, Professor Moira O’Bryan, investigating the role of a protein called Katnal2 in the progression of degenerative brain disease.