BME Seminar: Andres Nuncio Zuniga
Monday, November 21st, 2022 - 12:00 p.m.
Andres Nuncio Zuniga
Ph.D. Candidate of Biomedical Engineering
University of Arizona
"Making Waves: Medical Devices and Technologies Across Visual and Acoustic Spectra"
Keating 103 | Live Zoom Link - Passcode: BearDown
(Instructor permission required for enrolled students to attend via Zoom)
Hosts: Dr. Beth Hutchinson and Dr. Shang Song
Persons with a disability may request a reasonable accommodation by contacting the Disability Resource Center at 621-3268 (V/TTY).
Glaucoma Management: Glaucoma is a condition affecting 1% worldwide.The most prevalent type, i.e., primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG), is a condition in which elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) results in gradual degeneration of the optic nerve, leading to irreversible vision loss and ultimately to blindness if untreated and/or detected too late. POAG is treatable through topical medicine; however, it is difficult to track the treatment efficacy in
a routine manner. Moreover, standard practices for measuring IOP may be misleading in both accuracy and when they are taken (i.e., they do not account for early diurnal IOP elevated incidences, i.e., IOP spikes). Zuniga's project devised a proof-of-concept of an optically driven system which can detect such incidences and report them to patients.
Visual Navigation Aid: Many electronic travel aids (ETAs) have been developed with the intent of helping visually impaired individuals navigate better than they can with a white cane, i.e., the current gold standard for navigation. Such products generally fail due to pricing, learning curve, and the degree of help they offer compared to just a white cane alone. Zuniga's project devised a prototype ETA which combines low-cost ultrasonic rangefinders with haptic motors to allow for intuitive obstacle avoidance as a supplement to the white cane by vibration frequency-encoding of distances from obstacles.
Aromatase Inhibitor-induced Arthralgia (AIA) Detection: Aromatase inhibitors are an adjuvant, i.e., therapy enhancing, treatment for post-menopausal women with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer. The treatment improves survival rate, but results in a high prevalence of arthralgia (joint stiffness). Ultrasound shear wave elastography is a noninvasive method for determining subsurface material stiffness. Zuniga's project explored the potential of shear wave elastography as a tool for early detection of biomarkers indicative of patients who may develop AIA.