There are many fields in biotechnology that people can choose to study, but there are none like biomedical engineering. Biomedical engineering is a field that approaches from the experimental life sciences along with theoretical and computational methods from engineering, mathematics, and computer science. This specific type of science is used to solve biomedical problems of fundamental importance, such as human health.
Some scientists at Johns Hopkins University have been using their knowledge in this field to solve the problem of acute kidney injury (AKI) during the COVID-19 crisis. AKI is used to describe when the kidneys are not working properly, and patients with this disease rely on dialysate, a kidney dialysis fluid, to be injected into the patient. What makes this important is that 3% to 9% of COVID-19 patients have the possibility of developing this disorder, and the supply of dialysate has greatly diminished because of the pandemic.However, Derek Fine and Chirag Parikh had developed an idea on how to solve this problem.
Their idea was to “replace the shrinking stocks of pre-mixed commercially produced dialysate required for short-term ICU kidney dialysis machines with a suitable substitute manufactured by conventional hemodialysis devices and designed for long term treatment,” according to Johns Hopkins University. The conventional hemodialysis device creates its own dialysate in real time which draws from ultrapure water and concentrated chemical solutions. The two partners in addition to colleagues from their division studied the conventional dialysis machine and learned how it manufactures dialysate and used this knowledge to disable the alarm system, which would shut down the production if triggered.
However, there was a problem: they had to transfer the dialysate into bags. But thanks to the help of students Youseph Yazdi, Ryan Bell, and Brielle Cenci who are master’s students in the Center of Bioengineering Innovation and Design, a solution was found. The students designed and 3D printed a connector within 12 hours. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has already provided guidelines for the method, calling for all dialysate produced to be tested intermittently for bacteria and used within 12 hours from its origin. This enabled two New York hospitals to maintain sufficient supplies of dialysate for CVVHD.