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Tamara Jiménez | 04/27/2020 11:29
The idea of working on this new type of respirator arises after the collaboration of the design of valves for a respirator, a project coordinated by the University of Oviedo. It is then that they decide to take a “solo” path to launch a new type of respirator. “We wanted to contribute some initiative to what was already being done at the national level in relation to different aspects in the fight against Covid-19”, explains Juan Antonio Marchal. “We are in the prototyping phase. That is to say, from this prototype we carry out the tests on an artificial lung model ”.
This new design of artificial respirator would offer many advantages, not only to seriously ill Covid-19 patients in our country. Rather, it would be an opportunity for less developed countries due to its low cost of production. “It is a simple design, easy to produce and inexpensive. That is the most important thing, especially thinking about applications not only in the face of a possible rebound in cases of severe Coronavirus, but also thinking about its application in developing countries, ”says Professor Antonio Marchal.
These are undoubtedly hard times, in which confinement slows down the process but this team of researchers is unrestrained. “Despite the confinement, we have managed to create a good working group, with video conferences almost every day. The most complex has been getting some pieces that are cheap in the market but when being ordered online, with this situation, everything is delayed more. But the members of the group that use the 3D printers have them in their homes and that greatly speeds up the work, “says Juan Antonio Marchal.
The researchers collect as much information as possible to create a suitable artificial respirator. “We have also had contact with clinicians who know very well the mechanical ventilation of seriously ill patients and they have given us their feedback regarding what a patient needs,” says Juan Antonio. “We want to get this to fruition, to make the prototype work.”
It is a great team, specialists in each field, who collaborate hand in hand to improve the lives of patients. “Our team has a biomedical engineer who has designed the valve, I am a doctor and I provide the most physiological perspective, and together with the technical team led by Guillermo, together, we have created a multidisciplinary group,” says Juan Antonio Marchal.
That other group, led by Guillermo Rus, is in charge of the technical part of the design. “We are working on a respirator that eliminates the moving parts, specifically the ambu, the balloon that inflates and deflates,” says Rus.
This artificial respirator design has a unique feature that sets it apart from other respirators. “The main feature of the respirator that we have designed is that it uses a single electromechanically controlled valve, thereby eliminating several valves and moving parts. The only valve is designed in such a way that the outlet pressure is adjusted continuously in real time throughout the inspiration and expiration time ”, explains Guillermo Rus.
From the University of Granada they are designing an artificial respirator that allows more robustness and greater manufacturing simplicity. To do this, medicine and engineering merge to create improvements like this. “The engineering that hospitals and health care facilities need in order to heal patients is developed not only by doctors but also by engineers in the field of medical device technology,” says Rus.
“We have to work side by side to understand the mechanics and physics of the problem that we need to be able to give an engineering solution. We need the two sectors to learn from each other, “says Guillermo Rus. In short, a union that encourages innovation and research in search of progress.
