Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
or g
Golden Horseshoe
Biosciences Network
A hands-on lifesaver
Three McMaster grads think their lifesaving idea is a hands-down winner. Next year they hope to
New things prove it by taking their invention – a heart-smart glove – to the Center for Resuscitation Science
on the grow at the University of Pennsylvania.
We’re hoping to be There, field tests on the nylon-spandex glove with the onboard circuitry will determine if the
able to talk to you device can make it to market. Already, the center’s associate director Dr. Benjamin Abella has
pronounced the black glove with a video screen on the back “a really nifty idea”. Popular
soon at the Golden
Science liked the idea so much the magazine featured the glove in June among the year’s best
Horseshoe Biosciences inventions.
Network.We’re working
on a blog for our site at The Ontario Centres of Excellence has recognized its worth by providing a grant of up to
www.ghbn.org and on $61,000. And distributors from North America and abroad have contacted the
three graduates in electrical and biomedical engineering to indicate
RSS feed that will update
their interest in marketing the device, should the glove reach
content on items we want commercialization.
to highlight or let you
know about. “We’re trying to create the most user-friendly device
that even people with no medical background can
And look for updates use to give someone CPR,” says one of the three
on our trademarked students, Corey Centen. [CPR, or cardiopulmonary
resuscitation, is a combination heart/lung
Innovation Café events
lifesaving procedure. CPR aims to force the
planned for the coming lungs to keep breathing and the blood to keep
months. They’re a great circulating when the heart has stopped.]
place to exchange ideas
within the biosciences The glove’s piezoelectric sensors, circuits and
metronome timing – all stitched inside – measure
community in Niagara-
the depth and frequency of chest compressions, even
Hamilton-Halton. the heart rate of a subject to make sure they require
resuscitation. The glove has an audible component that alerts
users as to the efficiency of their CPR efforts.
Inside – All of that is important since too few compressions or two shallow a depth render CPR Nilesh Patel,
left, and
n Nysa on the move efforts less than effective. Centen and fellow grads Nilesh Patel and Sarah Smith realized
Corey Centen
[page 2] that they had forgotten training they received in past CPR courses or perhaps never knew with the
that compressions should come at about 100 per minute, given at a depth of four to five CPR glove
n Cancer in a centimetres.
new light
[page 3] That led to development of the glove, which has provisional patent protection in the U.S. The
glove could be part of “any standard first-aid package,” says Patel. Relayed to a computer,
n EuroBio 2007
the hands-on system can also be a teaching tool in a classroom of trained volunteers or health
[page 4]
professionals.
n A beneficial
bacteria The McMaster grads, who have incorporated as Atreo Medical Inc. and have their own website
[page 5] – www.cprglove.com – are working on their next prototype to take to the resuscitation center in
Philadelphia.
“We’re moving ahead now in both business and product-development areas,” says Patel. “The next
stage will take us closer to market and closer to saving more lives.” n
www.ghbn.or g
Image: Blue copper sulphate, membrane at right, filtered out from a test liquid stream.
www.ghbn.or g
www.ghbn.or g
GHBN News is a quarterly newsletter published by GHBN. Director and editor: Darlene Homonko
Writer: Mike Pettapiece Contributor: Marg Leyland Graphic Design: Nadia DiTraglia