Category: Engineering Page 1 of 14

Bandaids and pimple patches are the first things we consider when discussing adhesives in medicine. But what if there is more to the story? What if adhesives could not only cover and protect but also diagnose and communicate? It turns out Dr. Wei Gao, assistant professor of medical engineering at the California Institute of Technology, is asking these exact questions. In the field of biomedical adhesives, Gao’s research is revolutionizing our understanding of precision medicine and medical testing accessibility. He visited Duke on Oct. 9 to present his work as part of the MEMS (Mechanical Engineering and Material Science) Seminar Series.

Gao’s research team focuses on material, device, and system innovations that apply molecular research and principles to clinical settings and improve health. Gao focused his talk on the invaluable characteristics and uses of sweat. Sweat can offer doctors a broad spectrum of information, including nutrients, biomarkers, pH levels, electrolytes/salts, and hormones. He leverages this fundamental characteristic of human physiology to design wearable biosensors that can provide early warnings of health issues or diseases. Gao focuses on making biomarker detection more efficient than current methods, such as blood samples, which require hospital testing, involve highly invasive techniques, and lack continuous monitoring.

The first milestone in his research came in 2016 when he introduced a fully printed, wearable, real-time monitoring sensor device. The device allowed them to continuously collect sweat and wirelessly communicate data about these sweat samples from patients onto digital devices. The initial 2016 device focused on resolving four fundamental challenges: since most chemical sensors are not stable over long periods of time, the device had to be (1) low-cost and (2) disposable without sacrificing performance. In addition, the device had to (3) be mass-producible to be accessible to the public and (4) integrate multiple signals that could be real-time transmitted to a digital interface.

Schematic of the sensor array for multiplexed perspiration analysis in Dr. Gao’s 2016 biosensor design

To address the first two of those challenges, Gao and his group turned to printing techniques. The circuit substrate was a thin piece of flexible PET (a plastic), upon which they layered the circuit components. The flexible sensor array was constructed in a similar pattern, with a layer of PET patterned with gold to produce the electrodes, covered with parylene, and then each electrode was tuned to receive a specific chemical stimulus: potassium and sodium ion sensors, with a polyvinyl butyrate reference electrode, and oxidase-based glucose and lactate sensors paired with a silver/silver chloride reference electrode. This design allows the simultaneous monitoring of multiple biomarkers. To transmit the data wirelessly, the circuit board included a Bluetooth transceiver.

The next major step was to devise a way to monitor sweat without relying upon heat or vigorous exercise, neither of which may be feasible in the case of clinically ill patients. In a 2023 paper, Gao and colleagues published a biosensor that could induce localized sweating using an electric circuit. Called iontophoresis, the technique delivers a drug (a cholinergic agonist) that stimulates the sweat glands on demand and only in the area of the sensor.

Another important question was how to power the devices sustainably. Gao’s lab has devised two primary responses to this question: In a 2020 paper, his team powered a similar multiplexed wireless sensor entirely using electricity generated from compounds in sweat. This entailed using lactate biofuel cells to harness the oxidation of lactate to pyruvate (coupled with the reduction of oxygen to water) to provide a stable current. In a 2023 paper, they employed a flexible perovskite solar cell onboard the device to power the monitoring of a suite of biomarkers.

Dr. Gao’s recent publication in February 2024 highlighted a Consolidated AI-Reinforced Electronic Skin (CARES) for stress response monitoring

With these technical hurdles overcome, Gao and his lab have been able to develop sensors targeted to several important medical applications. The work can be directly applied to the monitoring of conditions like cystic fibrosis and gout. More broadly, wearable biosensors can be used to track levels of medically relevant compounds like cortisol (for stress monitoring), C reactive protein (inflammation), and reproductive hormones. The lab has also branched into other kinds of devices that use similar microfluidics approaches, including smart bandages for wound monitoring and smart masks to detect biomarkers in breath.

Through eight years of dedicated investigation, Gao serves as a pioneer in the field of bioelectronic interfaces. Gao continues to widen the possibilities of biosensors not only within the medical sphere but also for the general public. For example, his lab is collaborating with NASA and the U.S. Navy to support the performance and health of astronauts and our military, which is vital as they work in extreme environments. By pushing forward ground-breaking devices such as sweat biosensors, our healthcare systems can pursue preventative care, reducing the need for treatments or health resources by catching these issues early on. Following Gao’s footsteps, we can now build toward a healthier future as we improve the precision of our healthcare approaches and technological advancements.

Duke experts discuss the potential of AI to help prevent, detect and treat disease

By Robin Smith

On October 15, 2024

In Artificial Intelligence, Biomedical Engineering, Engineering, Entrepreneurship, Medicine

Sure, A.I. chatbots can write emails, summarize an article, or come up with a grocery list. But ChatGPT-style artificial intelligence and other machine learning techniques have been making their way into another realm: healthcare.

Imagine using AI to detect early changes in our health before we get sick, or understand what happens in our brains when we feel anxious or depressed — even design new ways to fight hard-to-treat diseases.

These were just a few of the research themes discussed at the Duke Summit on AI for Health Innovation, held October 9 – 11.

Duke assistant professor Pranam Chatterjee is the co-founder of Gameto, Inc. and UbiquiTx, Inc. Credit: Brian Strickland

For assistant professor of biomedical engineering Pranam Chatterjee, the real opportunity for the large language models behind tools like ChatGPT lies not in the language of words, but in the language of biology.

Just like ChatGPT predicts the order of words in a sentence, the language models his lab works on can generate strings of molecules that make up proteins.

His team has trained language models to design new proteins that could one day fight diseases such as Huntington’s or cancer, even grow human eggs from stem cells to help people struggling with infertility.

“We don’t just make any proteins,” Chatterjee said. “We make proteins that can edit any DNA sequence, or proteins that can modify other disease-causing proteins, as well as proteins that can make new cells and tissues from scratch.”

Duke assistant professor Monica Agrawal is the co-founder of Layer Health. Credit: Brian Strickland

New faculty member Monica Agrawal said algorithms that leverage the power of large language models could help with another healthcare challenge: mining the ever-expanding trove of data in a patient’s medical chart.

To choose the best medication for a certain patient, for example, a doctor might first need to know things like: How has their disease progressed over time? What interventions have already been tried? What symptoms and side effects did they have? Do they have other conditions that need to be considered?

“The challenge is, most of these variables are not found cleanly in the electronic health record,” said Agrawal, who joined the departments of computer science and biostatistics and bioinformatics this fall.

Instead, most of the data that could answer these questions is trapped in doctors’ notes. The observations doctors type into a patient’s electronic medical record during a visit, they’re often chock-full of jargon and abbreviations.

The shorthand saves time during patient visits, but it can also lead to confusion among patients and other providers. What’s more, reviewing these records to understand a patient’s healthcare history is time-intensive and costly.

Agrawal is building algorithms that could make these records easier to maintain and analyze, with help from AI.

“Language is really embedded across medicine, from notes to literature to patient communications to trials,” Agrawal said. “And it affects many stakeholders, from clinicians to researchers to patients. The goal of my new lab is to make clinical language work for everyone.”

Duke assistant professor Jessilyn Dunn leads Duke’s BIG IDEAs Lab. Credit: Brian Strickland

Jessilyn Dunn, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering and biostatistics and bioinformatics at Duke, is looking at whether data from smartwatches and other wearable devices could help detect early signs of illness or infection before people start to have symptoms and realize they’re sick.

Using AI and machine learning to analyze data from these devices, she and her team at Duke’s Big Ideas Lab say their research could help people who are at risk of developing diabetes take action to reverse it, or even detect when someone is likely to have RSV, COVID-19 or the flu before they have a chance to spread the infection.

“The benefit of wearables is that we can gather information about a person’s health over time, continuously and at a very low cost,” Dunn said. “Ultimately, the goal is to provide patient empowerment, precision therapies, just-in-time intervention and improve access to care.”

Duke associate professor David Carlson. Credit: Brian Strickland

David Carlson, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and biostatistics and bioinformatics, is developing AI techniques that can make sense of brain wave data to better understand different emotions and behaviors.

Using machine learning to analyze the electrical activity of different brain regions in mice, he and his colleagues have been able to track how aggressive a mouse is feeling, and even block the aggression signals to make them more friendly to other mice.

“This might sound like science fiction,” Carlson said. But Carlson said the work will help researchers better understand what happens in the brains of people who struggle with social situations, such as those with autism or social anxiety disorder, and could even lead to new ways to manage and treat psychiatric disorders such as anxiety and depression.

Deep Dive into Engineering’s Past

By Stone Yan

On September 24, 2024

In Engineering, History

Many of us enter the Duke library complex through the Rubenstein doors, especially on rainy days. However, despite passing countless times, most have never ventured into the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library or checked out its artifacts – including some eye-catching items featured at the annual Engineering Expo on September 18.

How could I not start by describing the 16th-century amputation saw? The magnificent artifact was handled by many impressed visitors, including myself (see adjacent photo). The embroidery was exuberant, and Rachel Ingold, the Curator of the History of Medicine Collections, informed me that the saw was of European descent. She also pointed out that the blade is removable and appears different from the rest of the artifact, suggesting that the instrument has been so frequently used that the blade had to be replaced. I curiously asked whether historians know how many patients have been victimized by this gruesome, two-person saw… sadly, the answer is we don’t know. Merely the thought of the procedure makes me shudder.

Me holding the amputation blade… it should’ve been held by two people back in the day!

While the saw was the headline artifact, it was by no means the only spotlight! Brooke Guthrie, a Research Services Librarian staffing the event, suggested that I examine Robert Hooke’s “Micrographia,” her personal favorite. In particular, she pointed out the exquisite scientific illustration of a flea, which was recorded using an early microscope. The level of detail (such as the hairs and claws) captured by Hooke in the drawing was fascinating – and spooky! What’s more amazing was that the copy we were looking at was the first edition, now more than 350 years old.

From my conversation with Guthrie, I learned that the Rubenstein Library boasts an expansive portfolio, ranging from the History of Medicine Collections to the Hartman Center for Advertising and Marketing History and the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture. While the library is interested in the areas correlated to its existing centers, the acquisition of materials is also heavily guided by student and faculty interests, which is evident in the diversity of Rubenstein collections. For instance, did you know that you could spend an afternoon with historically significant comic books? If that’s not your thing, you could opt to bring a few friends and spend some time playing ancient board games instead.

During my visit, I also spoke to Andy Armacost, Head of Collection Development at the Rubenstein. He introduced me to my favorite artifacts at the event, both hailing from the Hartman Center’s Consumer Reports Collection. The first was an apparatus testing the quality of razor blades: the wood frame was covered with meandering strings and fixtures, with the experimental blade placed adjacent to the test material, positioned in the center of the entire object. The second was a newer device, the structure composed of metal and testing toothpaste, which was applied by a toothbrush onto a grimy dental fixture. Both Armacost and I chuckled at the thought of making the fake teeth “dirty” before each trial… it must have been a sight for the experimenters!

Can you spot the remaining residue on the artificial teeth? Crest needs to do better according to this test machine!

Duke community members continued to stream in to event. Right as I was about to visit the “make a button” station, I spotted Pratt Dean Jerome Lynch in the room as well, testing out visual perception glasses that turned 2D images into 3D scenes. As a Biomedical Engineering student, I could not help walking over to him and asking a few questions regarding his perspective on the exhibition. Lynch was extremely welcoming to my questions and offered many words of advice to Pratt students regarding utilizing the libraries’ rich resources. He encouraged engineering students to frequent the Rubenstein collections, arguing that the artifacts illuminate the evolution of the role of engineers and how previous engineers creatively addressed the great contemporary challenges. He also expressed his personal interest in history… thus defeating any claims that engineers could not simultaneously enjoy the humanities.

The perception goggles that both Dean Lynch and I peeked into during the Engineering Extravaganza!

Before leaving, I made sure to speak to Ingold again, given that she was a leading organizer of the event. Well, she maintains that it was a group effort, so perhaps I should edit “leading organizer” into “co-organizer.” Anyhow, she expressed strong enthusiasm for student involvement in the Rubenstein collections, calling for those interested in exhibit curation to reach out and seek opportunities to do so. She also touted an upcoming Spring exhibition and the likely return of the extravaganza next Fall… Keep vigilant on more information for these events!

Next time you enter through Rubenstein doors, take a moment to check out the storied collections. I promise you will not be disappointed!

A Grueling Math Test So Hard, Almost No One Gets a Perfect Score

By Robin Smith

On March 1, 2024

In Engineering, Mathematics, Students

Yet hundreds of schools compete each year, and this time the Blue Devils made it into the top three

Every year, thousands of college students from across the U.S. and Canada give up a full Saturday before finals begin to take a notoriously difficult, 6-hour math test — and not for a grade, but for fun.

In “the Putnam,” as it’s known, contestants spend two 3-hour sessions trying to solve 12 proof-based math problems worth 10 points apiece.

More than 150,000 people have taken the exam in the contest’s 85-year history, but only five times has someone earned a perfect score. Total scores of 1 or 0 are not uncommon.

Despite the odds, the Blue Devils had a strong showing this year.

A total of 3,857 students from 471 schools competed in the December contest. In results announced Feb. 16, a Duke team consisting of Erick Jiang ’26, James “Fletch” Rydell ’26 and Kaixin “Kai” Wang ’27 ranked third in North America behind MIT and Harvard, winning a $15,000 prize for Duke and each taking home $600 for themselves.

According to mathematics professor Lenny Ng, it’s Duke’s best performance in almost 20 years.

“This is the first time a Duke team has placed this high since 2005,” said Ng, who was a three-time Putnam Fellow himself, finishing in the top five each year he was an undergraduate at Harvard.

There’s no official syllabus for prepping for the Putnam. To get ready, the students practice working through problems and discussing their solutions in a weekly problem-solving seminar held each fall.

Students serve as the instructors, focusing on a different topic each week ranging from calculus to number theory.

“They get a sense of what the problems are like, so it’s not quite as intimidating as it might be if they went into the contest cold,” said math department chair Robert Bryant.

“Not only do they learn how to do the problems, but they also get to know each other,” said professor emeritus David Kraines, who has coached Duke Putnam participants for more than 30 years.

Kraines said 8-10 students take his problem-solving seminar for credit each fall. “We always get another 10 or so who come for the pizza,” Kraines said.

The biggest difference between a Putnam problem and a homework problem, said engineering student Rydell, is that usually with a homework problem you’ve already been shown what to do; you just have to apply it.

Whereas most of the time in math competitions like the Putnam, “there’s no clear path forward when you first see the problem,” Rydell said. “They’re more about finding some insight or way of looking at the problem in a different perspective.”

Putnam problems are meant to be solvable using only paper and pencil — no computing power required. The contestants work through each problem by hand, trying different paths towards a solution and spelling out their reasoning step-by-step.

This year, one problem involved determining how many configurations of coins are possible given a grid with coins sitting in some of the squares, if those coins are only allowed to move in certain ways.

Another question required knowing something about the geometry of a 20-sided shape known as a icosahedron.

“That was the one I struggled with the most,” said Wang, whose individual score nevertheless tied him for sixth place overall out of 3,857 contestants.

The most common question he gets asked about the Putnam, Rydell said, is not so much what’s on the test, but why people take it in the first place.

This year’s test was so challenging that a score of 78 out of 120 or better — just 65% — was enough to earn a spot in the top 10.

Most of the people who took it scored less than 10%, which means many problems went unsolved.

“For days after I took the Putnam, I would think about the problems and wonder: could I have done it better this way? You can become obsessed,” said Bryant, who took the Putnam in the 1970s as a college student at NC State.

Sophomores Jiang and Rydell, who both ranked in the top 5%, see it as an opportunity to “meet people who also enjoy problem solving,” Jiang said.

“I’m not a math major so I probably wouldn’t do much of this kind of problem solving otherwise,” Rydell said.

For Rydell it’s also the aha moment: “Just the reward of when you solve a problem, the feeling of making that breakthrough,” Rydell said.

Professor Kraines’ weekly problem-solving seminar, MATH 283S, takes place on Tuesday evenings at 6:15 p.m. during the fall semester. Registration for Fall 2024 begins April 3.

By Robin Smith, Marketing & Communications

Sharing a Love of Electrical Engineering With Her Students

By Guest Post

On January 11, 2024

In Artificial Intelligence, Biomedical Engineering, Engineering, Faculty, Guest Post

Note: Each year, we partner with Dr. Amy Sheck’s students at the North Carolina School of Science and Math to profile some unsung heroes of the Duke research community. This is the seventh of eight posts.

“As a young girl, I always knew I wanted to be a scientist,” Dr. Tania Roy shares as she sits in her Duke Engineering office located next to state-of-the-art research equipment.

The path to achieving her dream took her to many places and unique research opportunities. After completing her bachelor’s in India, she found herself pursuing further studies at universities in the United States, eventually receiving her Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University.

Throughout these years Roy was able to explore and contribute to a variety of fields within electrical engineering, including energy-efficient electronics, two-dimensional materials, and neuromorphic computing, among others. But her deepest passion and commitment is to engage upcoming generations with electrical engineering research.

As an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering within Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering, Tania Roy gets to do exactly that. She finds happiness in mentoring her passionate young students. They work on projects focused on various problems in fields such as Biomedical Engineering (BME) and Mechanical Engineering, but her special focus is Electrical Engineering.

Roy walks through the facilities carefully explaining the purpose of each piece of equipment when we run into one of her students. She explains how his project involves developing hardware for artificial intelligence, and the core idea of computer vision.

Roy in her previous lab at the University of Central Florida. (UCF photo)

Through sharing her passion for electrical engineering, Roy hopes to motivate and inspire a new generation.

“The field of electrical engineering is expected to experience immense growth in the future, especially with the recent trends in technological development,” she says, explaining that there needs to be more interest in the field of electrical engineering for the growth to meet demand.

The recent shortage of semiconductor chips for the industrial market is an example of this. It poses a crucial problem to the supply and demand of various products that rely on these fundamental components, Roy says. By increasing the interest of students, and therefore increasing the number of students pursuing electrical engineering, we can build a foundation for the advancement of technologies powering our society today, says Roy.

Coming with a strong background of research herself, she is well equipped for the role of advocate and mentor. She has worked with gallium nitride for high voltage breakdowns. This is when the insulation between two conductors or electrical components fails, allowing electrical current to flow through the insulation. This breakdown usually occurs when the voltage across the insulating material exceeds a certain threshold known as the breakdown voltage.

In electric vehicles, high breakdown voltage is crucial for several reasons related to the safety, performance, and efficiency of the vehicle’s electrical system, and Roy’s work directly impacts this. She has also conducted extensive research on 2D materials and their photovoltaic capabilities, and is currently working on developing brain-inspired computer architectures for machine learning algorithms. Similar to the work of her student, this research utilizes the structure of the human brain to model an architecture for AI, replicating the synapses and neural connections.

As passionate as she is about research, she shares that she used to love to go to art galleries and look at paintings, “I could do it for hours,” Roy says. Currently, if she is not actively pursuing her research, she enjoys spending time with her two young children.

“I hope to share my dream with this new generation,” Roy concludes.

Guest post by Sutharsika Kumar, North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, Class of 2024

Inventors, Assemble: The Newest Gadgets Coming Out of Duke

By Michelle Li

On December 15, 2023

In Biology, Biomedical Engineering, Engineering, Entrepreneurship, Faculty, Medicine, Science Communication & Education

What do a smart toilet, an analog film app, and metamaterial computer chips have in common? They were all invented at Duke!

The Office for Translation & Commercialization—which supports Duke innovators bringing new technologies to market—recently hosted its fifth annual Invented at Duke celebration. With nine featured inventors and 300 attendees, it was an energetic atmosphere to network and learn.

*Attendees mingle in Penn Pavilion. Credit: Brian Mullins Photography.*

When event organizer Fedor Kossakovski was selecting booths, the name of the game was diversity—from medicine to art, from graduate students to faculty. “Hopefully people feel like they see themselves in these [inventors] and it’s representative of Duke overall,” he said. Indeed, as I munched through my second Oreo bar from the snack table and made the rounds, this diversity became apparent. Here are just two of the inventions on display:

Guided Medical Solutions

The first thing you’ll notice at Jacob Peloquin’s booth is a massive rubber torso.

As he replaces a punctured layer of rubber skin with a shiny new one, Peloquin beckons us over to watch. Using his OptiSETT device, he demonstrates easy insertion and placement of a chest tube.

“Currently, the method that’s used is you make an incision, and then place your fingers through, and then take the tube and place that between your fingers,” Peloquin explained. This results in a dangerously large incision that cuts through fascia and muscle; in fact, one-third of these procedures currently end in complications.

Peloquin’s device is a trocar—a thin plastic cylinder with a pointed tip at one end and tubing coming out of the other. It includes a pressure-based feedback system that tells you exactly how deep to cut, avoiding damage to the lungs or liver, and a camera to aid placement. Once the device is inserted, the outer piece can be removed so only the tubing remains.

*Peloquin demonstrates his OptiSETT device. Credit: Brian Mullins Photography.*

Peloquin—a mechanical engineering graduate student—was originally approached by the surgeons behind OptiSETT to assist with 3D printing. “They needed help, so I kind of helped those initial prototypes, then we realized there might be a market for this,” he said. Now, as he finishes his doctorate, he has a plethora of opportunities to continue working on OptiSETT full-time—starting a company, partnering with the Department of Defense, and integrating machine learning to interpret the camera feed.

It’s amazing how much can change in a couple years, and how much good a rubber torso can do.

GRIP Display

This invention is for my fellow molecular biology enthusiasts—for the lovers of cells, genes, and proteins!

The theme of Victoria Goldenshtein’s booth is things that stick together. It features an adorable claw machine that grabs onto its stuffed animal targets, and a lime green plastic molecule that can grab DNA. Although the molecule looks complex, Goldenshtein says its function is straightforward. “This just serves as a glue between protein and the DNA [that encodes it].”

*Goldenshtein—a postdoctoral associate in biomedical engineering—uses her lime green molecular model to demonstrate GRIP’s function. Credit: Brian Mullins Photography.*

Goldenshtein applies this technology to an especially relevant class of proteins—antibodies. Antibodies are produced by the immune system to bind and neutralize foreign substances like disease. They can be leveraged to create drug therapies, but first we need to know which gene corresponds to which antibody and which disease. That’s where GRIP steps in.

“You would display an antibody and you would vary the antibody—a billion different variations—and attach each one to the system. This grabs the DNA,” Goldenshtein said.

Then, you mix these billions of antibody-DNA pairs with disease cells to see which one attaches. Once you’ve found the right one, the DNA is readily available to be amplified, making an army of the same disease-battling antibody. Goldenshtein says this method of high-throughput screening can be used to find a cancer cure.

Although GRIP be but small, its applications are mighty.

Explore Other Booths

Coprata: a smart toilet that tracks your digestive health
inSoma Bio: a polymer that aids soft-tissue reconstruction
Spoolyard: a platform for exploring digital footage with analog film techniques
FaunaLabs: smart watches for our furry friends
G1 Optics: a tonometer to automatically detect eye pressure
TheraSplice: precision RNA splicing to treat cancer
Neurophos: metamaterial photonics for powering ultra-fast AI computation

As I finished my last Oreo bar and prepared for the trek back to East Campus, I was presented with a parting gift—a leather notebook with “Inventor” embossed on the cover. “No pressure,” said the employee who was handing them out with a wink.

I thought about the unique and diverse people I’d met that night—an undergraduate working in the Co-Lab, an ECE graduate student, and even a librarian from UNC—and smiled. As long as we each keep imagining and scribbling in our notebooks, there’s no doubt we can invent something that changes the world.

Post by Michelle Li, Class of 2027

How to be a Global Inventor

By Olivia Ares

On November 29, 2023

In Biomedical Engineering, Business/Economics, Climate/Global Change, Engineering, Entrepreneurship, Faculty, Global Health

Gadgets, devices, doo-dads, oh my! The Duke Global Health Institute (DGHI) recently hosted three of its members to lead a panel on creating medical devices for low- and middle-income countries. The event was called “Global Medical Device Innovation: Three Models for Creation and Commercialization.”

Each sought to decrease costs and increase scalability for medical procedures. In short, they are expert inventors who are doing good in the world.

*Two of the most prominent inventors of our era. Image courtesy of Disney.*

We’ll go step-by-step in a moment, but to start you on your journey to being just like our panelists, here’s a short glossary:

Standard-of-care: a public health term for the way things are usually done.

IRB: institutional review board, a group of people, usually based in universities, that protect human subjects in research studies.

Screening: when doctors look at signs your body might show to determine
whether you need to be tested for certain conditions.

Supply-chain: the movement of materials your product goes through before, during, and after manufacturing. It is a general term for a group of different suppliers, factories, vendors, advertisers, researchers, and others that work separately.

Regulatory pathways: supply-chain for government approvals and other paperwork you need to have before introducing your product to the public.

Step 1: Meet your Mentors

Walter Lee is Chief of Staff of the Department of Head and Neck Surgery & Communication Sciences, Co-Director of the Head and Neck Program, and an affiliate faculty member at the Duke Global Health Institute. He presented ENlyT (pronounced like en-light), a newfangled nasopharyngoscope – a camera that goes down your nose and down your throat to screen for cancer. He wants to expand with partners in Vietnam and Singapore.

Marlee Kreiger helped found the Center for Global Women’s Health Technologies at Duke in 2007. Since then, she has led the Center in many interdisciplinary and international ventures. In fact, the Center for Global Women’s Health Technologies spans both the Pratt School of Engineering and the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences. She presented on the Callascope, a pocket-sized colposcope – a camera device for cervical cancer screening.

Julias Mugaga will soon be a visiting scholar at Duke – until then, he heads Design Cube at Makerere University in Uganda. He presented his KeyScope, a plug-and-play surgical camera with 0.3% of the cost of standard-of-care cameras.

Step 2: Name your Audience

DGHI has “global” in the name, so it is no surprise that these presenters serve communities around the world. Perhaps something that inventors like Dr. Doofenshmirtz often get wrong is that new innovation should come at the benefit of underserved communities, not at the cost of them. For Lee, that focus would be in his collaborations in Vietnam; for Mugaga it was his community in Uganda; and for Kreiger, it was the many studies conducted in Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Costa Rica, Honduras, and India.

Each of the presenters could agree that the main strategy is simple: find partners. Community members on the ground. Organizations that can benefit from your presence.

*Another prominent–albeit villainous–inventor, Dr. Doofenshmirtz. Image courtesy of Disney.*

Another notable aspect of your audience will be the certification you vie for. Depending on your location, you may need different permissions to distribute your product, or even begin on the journey to secure funding from certain sources.

In the United States, the most relevant regulatory pathway is FDA clearance, which is notably less restrictive than the CE mark distributed in the European Union. Both certifications are accepted in other countries, but many of the inventors on the panel opted to secure a CE mark to potentially appeal to a wider variety of governments around the world.

ISO is an international organization that is also necessary for certification, particularly if you are looking to test a medical product. No reason to be dragged down by the paperwork, though! When asked about securing Ugandan product certification, Mugaga declared, “This is one of the most exciting journeys I have taken.” His path to clearance was even more wrought with uncertainty – without steady sources of material in the Ugandan economy, it is harder to earn FDA or CE approval, two of the most widely-acknowledged certifications in the world.

Step 3: Test

Now that you have permission, you can start changing lives. Many participants in our panelists’ studies were patients in community health clinics across the globe. Their partners in these clinics also had the opportunity to save tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment. While it seems like a no-brainer, there are ethical concerns that need to be addressed first. For that, you need to fill out…. You guessed it: more paperwork. IRB approval is usually granted by educational institutions (as you should recall from my handy glossary), and is crucial to secure before any testing with humans is started. In fact, the government (and most private investors) won’t even give you a second glance if you ask them for money without IRB approval.

One big hurdle many of the panelists noted was a distrust of the technology and institution it came from – a foreign entity testing their products on you does not always invoke fear, but it certainly does not always promote trust. Kreiger noted that the work of their community health partners does the heavy lifting on that front; not only are they known community pillars, but they have authority to promote health technology through their existing relationships. If you run into trouble identifying partners in your inventorship journey–never fear. Lee has a message for you: “Ask around. At Duke, there’s always an expert around who’s willing to lend you their time.”

Step 4: Distribute

Now that you are an expert, your invention works, and you’re saving lives, you can attempt to cement your design as standard-of-care. This may look different depending on where in the world you want to distribute, but the next step is to contract a large-scale manufacturer. Your materials have been sourced by now (FDA says they better be) — so finding someone to put them together at an industrial scale should be easy! Your cost may fluctuate at this scale with the increased labor costs, but bulk production and distribution altogether should provide you, your institution, and your clients the best possible chance at changing the world.

Lee did not receive NIH funding until his fourth attempt at applying. Kreiger did not settle on the first manufacturer contracted. Mugaga is still in the process of securing a CE mark. And yet, all of them are success stories. You can see the ENlyT saving lives in hospitals in Vietnam; you can track the reallocation of $18,000 in savings from purchasing a Calloscope; and if you’re lucky, you’ll catch Mulgaga on campus next year as a visiting scholar at Duke!

Post by Olivia Ares, Class of 2025

Putting Stronger Guardrails Around AI

By Robin Smith

On November 21, 2023

In Artificial Intelligence, Computers/Technology, Engineering, Law, Lecture, Policy

AI regulation is ramping up worldwide. Duke AI law and policy expert Lee Tiedrich discusses where we’ve been and where we’re going.

DURHAM, N.C. — It’s been a busy season for AI policy.

The rise of ChatGPT unleashed a frenzy of headlines around the promise and perils of artificial intelligence, and raised concerns about how AI could impact society without more rules in place.

Consequently, government intervention entered a new phase in recent weeks as well. On Oct. 30, the White House issued a sweeping executive order regulating artificial intelligence.

The order aims to establish new standards for AI safety and security, protect privacy and equity, stand up for workers and consumers, and promote innovation and competition. It’s the U.S. government’s strongest move yet to contain the risks of AI while maximizing the benefits.

“It’s a very bold, ambitious executive order,” said Duke executive-in-residence Lee Tiedrich, J.D., who is an expert in AI law and policy.

Tiedrich has been meeting with students to unpack these and other developments.

“The technology has advanced so much faster than the law,” Tiedrich told a packed room in Gross Hall at a Nov. 15 event hosted by Duke Science & Society.

“I don’t think it’s quite caught up, but in the last few weeks we’ve taken some major leaps and bounds forward.”

Countries around the world have been racing to establish their own guidelines, she explained.

The same day as the US-led AI pledge, leaders from the Group of Seven (G7) — which includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States — announced that they had reached agreement on a set of guiding principles on AI and a voluntary code of conduct for companies.

Both actions came just days before the first ever global summit on the risks associated with AI, held at Bletchley Park in the U.K., during which 28 countries including the U.S. and China pledged to cooperate on AI safety.

“It wasn’t a coincidence that all this happened at the same time,” Tiedrich said. “I’ve been practicing law in this area for over 30 years, and I have never seen things come out so fast and furiously.”

The stakes for people’s lives are high. AI algorithms do more than just determine what ads and movie recommendations we see. They help diagnose cancer, approve home loans, and recommend jail sentences. They filter job candidates and help determine who gets organ transplants.

Which is partly why we’re now seeing a shift in the U.S. from what has been a more hands-off approach to “Big Tech,” Tiedrich said.

Tiedrich presented Nov. 15 at an event hosted by Duke Science & Society.

In the 1990s when the internet went public, and again when social media started in the early 2000s, “many governments — the U.S. included — took a light touch to regulation,” Tiedrich said.

But this moment is different, she added.

“Now, governments around the world are looking at the potential risks with AI and saying, ‘We don’t want to do that again. We are going to have a seat at the table in developing the standards.’”

Power of the Purse

Biden’s AI executive order differs from laws enacted by Congress, Tiedrich acknowledged in a Nov. 3 meeting with students in Pratt’s Master of Engineering in AI program.

Congress continues to consider various AI legislative proposals, such as the recently introduced bipartisan Artificial Intelligence Research, Innovation and Accountability Act, “which creates a little more hope for Congress,” Tiedrich said.

What gives the administration’s executive order more force is that “the government is one of the big purchasers of technology,” Tiedrich said.

“They exercise the power of the purse, because any company that is contracting with the government is going to have to comply with those standards.”

“It will have a trickle-down effect throughout the supply chain,” Tiedrich said.

The other thing to keep in mind is “technology doesn’t stop at borders,” she added.

“Most tech companies aren’t limiting their market to one or two particular jurisdictions.”

“So even if the U.S. were to have a complete change of heart in 2024” and the next administration were to reverse the order, “a lot of this is getting traction internationally,” she said.

“If you’re a U.S. company, but you are providing services to people who live in Europe, you’re still subject to those laws and regulations.”

From Principles to Practice

Tiedrich said a lot of what’s happening today in terms of AI regulation can be traced back to a set of guidelines issued in 2019 by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, where she serves as an AI expert.

These include commitments to transparency, inclusive growth, fairness, explainability and accountability.

For example, “we don’t want AI discriminating against people,” Tiedrich said. “And if somebody’s dealing with a bot, they ought to know that. Or if AI is involved in making a decision that adversely affects somebody, say if I’m denied a loan, I need to understand why and have an opportunity to appeal.”

“The OECD AI principles really are the North Star for many countries in terms of how they develop law,” Tiedrich said.

“The next step is figuring out how to get from principles to practice.”

“The executive order was a big step forward in terms of U.S. policy,” Tiedrich said. “But it’s really just the beginning. There’s a lot of work to be done.”

Duke Civil Engineers Make Triumphant Return To Carolinas Symposium

By Guest Post

On April 19, 2023

In Engineering, Guest Post, Mathematics, Science Communication & Education, Students

After a three-year hiatus caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Duke’s student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) returned to the Carolinas in-person gathering. And they were in it to win it, taking home awards in four out of the five events in which they competed.

Duke sent seven Duke undergraduates to the symposium, which was hosted by The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina: Leo Lee, Harrison Kendall, Arthur Tsang, Hana Thibault, Anya Dias-Hawkins, Sarah Bailey and Grace Lee.

When not going for gold, the students also attended business meetings and professional workshops related to the civil engineering profession.

Seven students holding awards stand before the gateway of The Citidel in South Carolina at dusk. — (Left to right) Leo Lee, Harrison Kendall, Arthur Tsang, Hana Thibault, Anya Dias-Hawkins, Sarah Bailey, Grace Lee at The Citadel after the Symposium awards banquet.

Duke ASCE students also enjoyed networking with peers for the first time in years, meeting chapter members from other schools such as North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, North Carolina State University, The Citadel, Horry Georgetown Technical College, and Clemson University.

Sarah Bailey, Harrison Kendall, Anya Dias-Hawkins, and Hana Thibault before competing in the Quiz Bowl competition.

But when the lights came up, the gloves came off, and Duke’s students faced off against their peers in five competitions. Sophomore Anya Dias-Hawkins and junior Sarah Bailey earned third place for their efforts in the Geotechnical competition, where students were tasked with a real-life geotechnical design problem.

Juniors Grace Lee and Leo Lee along with senior Arthur Tsang won first place for their design in the Lightest Bridge competition, where popsicle bridges had to withstand a weight of 200 lbs.

Sophomores Anya Dias-Hawkins, Harrison Kendall and Hana Thibault also took home first place honors in the Freshmore competition, where students were tasked with designing an imaginary city. Lastly, Harrison Kendall won an individual award for his paper and presentation in the Daniel W. Mead Paper competition.

Arthur Tsang, Leo Lee, and Grace Lee standing on their winning Lightest Bridge design.

Duke ASCE is extremely excited to continue their efforts at the Carolinas symposium next year and hopes to send many more competitors. The group plans to compete in larger competitions such as Concrete Canoe next year at UNC Charlotte. With enough preparation, the students hope to advance to the national conference in 2024.

If you are interested in getting involved with Duke ASCE and/or competing in next year’s symposium, please email co-Presidents Sarah Bailey and Harrison Kendall at sarah.a.bailey@duke.edu or harrison.kendall@duke.edu.

Post by Harrison Kendall, civil engineering class of ‘25

Senior Jenny Huang on her Love for Statistics and the Scientific Endeavor

By Meghna Datta

On April 13, 2023

In Artificial Intelligence, Data, Engineering, Statistics, Students

Statistics and computer science double major Jenny Huang (T’23) started Duke as many of us do – vaguely pre-med, undecided on a major – but she knew she had an interest in scientific research. Four years later, with a Quad Fellowship and an acceptance to MIT for her doctoral studies, she reflects on how research shaped her time at Duke, and how she hopes to impact research.

What is it about statistics? And what is it about research?

With experience in biology research during high school and during her first year at Duke, Huang toyed with the idea of an MD/PhD, but ultimately realized that she might be better off dropping the MD. “I enjoy figuring out how the world works” Huang says, and statistics provided a language to examine the probabilistic and often unintuitive nature of the world around us.

In another life, Huang remarked, she might have been a physics and philosophy double major, because physics offers the most fundamental understanding of how the world works, and philosophy is similar to scientific research: in both, “you pursue the truth through cyclic questioning and logic.” She’s also drawn to engineering, because it’s the process of dissecting things until you can “build them back up from first principles.”

At the International Society for Bayesian Analysis summer conference in Montreal

Huang’s research and the impact of COVID-19

For Huang, research started her first year at Duke, on a Data+ team, led by Professor Charles Nunn, studying the variation of parasite richness across primate species. To map out what types of parasites interacted with what type of monkeys, the team relied on predictors such as body mass, diet, and social activity, but in the process, they came up against an interesting phenomenon.

It appeared that the more studied a primate was, the more interactions it would have with parasites, simply because of the amount of information available on the primate. Due to geographic and experimental constraints, however, a large portion of the primate-parasite network remained understudied. This example of a concept in statistics known as sampling bias was muddling their results. One day, while making an offhand remark about the problem to one of her professors (Professor David Dunson), Huang ended up arranging a serendipitous research match. It turned out that Dunson had a statistical model that could be applied to the problem Nunn and the Data+ team were facing.

The applicability of statistics to a variety of different fields enamored Huang. When COVID-19 hit, it impacted all of us to some degree, but for Huang, it provided the perfect opportunity to apply mathematical models to a rapidly-changing pandemic. For the past two summers, through work with Dunson on a DOMath project, as well as Professor Jason Xu and Professor Rick Durrett, Huang has used mathematical modeling to assess changes in the spread of COVID-19.

On inclusivity in research

As of 2018, just 28% of graduates in mathematics and statistics at the doctoral level identified as women. Huang will eventually be included in this percentage, seeing as she begins her Ph.D. at MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in the fall, working with Professor Tamara Broderick.

“When I was younger, I always thought that successful and smart people in academia were white men,” Huang laughed. But that’s not true, she emphasizes: “it’s just that we don’t have other people in the story.” As one of the few female-presenting people in her research meetings, Huang has often felt pressure to underplay her more, “girly” traits to fit in. But interacting with intelligent, accomplished female-identifying academics in the field (including collaborations with Professor Cynthia Rudin) reaffirms to her that it’s important to be yourself: “there’s a place for everyone in research.”

At the Joint Statistical Meetings Conference in D.C with fellow researcher Gaurav Parikh

Advice for first-years and what the future holds

While she can’t predict where exactly she’ll end up, Huang is interested in taking a proactive role in shaping the impacts of artificial intelligence and machine learning on society. And as the divide between academia and industry is becoming more and more gray, years from now, she sees herself existing somewhere in that space.

Her advice for incoming Duke students and aspiring researchers is threefold. First, Huang emphasizes the importance of mentorship. Having kind and validating mentors throughout her time at Duke made difficult problems in statistics so much more approachable for her, and in research, “we need more of that type of person!”

Second, she says that “when I first approached studying math, my impatience often got in the way of learning.” Slowing down with the material and allowing herself the time to learn things thoroughly helped her improve her academic abilities.

Being around people who have this shared love and a deep commitment for their work is just the human endeavor at its best.
Jenny huang

Lastly, she stresses the importance of collaboration. Sometimes, Huang remarked,“research can feel isolating, when really it is very community-driven.” When faced with a tough problem, there is nothing more rewarding than figuring it out together with the help of peers and professors. And she is routinely inspired by the people she does research with: “being around people who have this shared love and a deep commitment for their work is just the human endeavor at its best.”

Post by Meghna Datta, Class of 2023

(Editor’s note: This is Jenny’s second appearance on the blog. As a senior at NC School of Science and Math, she wrote a post about biochemist Meta Kuehn.)

Following the people and events that make up the research community at Duke

Category: Engineering Page 1 of 14

Sticking to Sweat: The Future of Biosensors and Tracking Our Health

Duke experts discuss the potential of AI to help prevent, detect and treat disease

Deep Dive into Engineering’s Past

A Grueling Math Test So Hard, Almost No One Gets a Perfect Score

Sharing a Love of Electrical Engineering With Her Students

Inventors, Assemble: The Newest Gadgets Coming Out of Duke

How to be a Global Inventor

Putting Stronger Guardrails Around AI

Duke Civil Engineers Make Triumphant Return To Carolinas Symposium

Senior Jenny Huang on her Love for Statistics and the Scientific Endeavor