News Archives - February 2006

MAE Prof. Gregory Carman Helps Develop New Heart Valve for Children

February 28, 2006

Dr. Daniel Levi of Mattel Children's Hospital and Prof. Gregory Carman of the MAE Dept.

Children with congenital heart defects may soon have an alternative to invasive open‑heart surgery that will mean less time in the hospital, a quicker recovery and no need to break open the breastbone, thanks to a new collaboration between researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and pediatric cardiologists at Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA.

Using a super-elastic, shape-memory metal alloy called "thin film nitinol," UCLA engineers are developing a collapsible heart valve for children that can be loaded into a catheter, inserted into a vein in the groin area, guided into place and then deployed in a precise location within the heart. As the valve is released from the catheter, it springs back to its original shape and begins to function.

"What is really novel about the valve UCLA Engineering has created is the memory‑retaining alloy and butterfly design that opens or hinges from the middle of the valve rather than the edges," said UCLA mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Gregory Carman, who, along with UCLA researcher Lenka Stepan, crafted the valve. "The unobtrusive leaflets within the valve mean there is no obstruction to blood flow. This smaller, low-profile design is well suited for children and, over time, will potentially allow children born with heart valve defects to experience less pain and live much fuller lives."

Dr. Daniel Levi, assistant professor of pediatric cardiology at Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA, designed the valve and joined Carman and Stepan to create and develop the revolutionary new device.

"Using catheters and collapsible valves, heart valves can be replaced without stopping the heart, without cutting the chest open and without long recovery times," Levi said. "This will represent a huge improvement in care for children living with a very difficult condition."

A defective heart valve fails to fully open or close, letting blood leak back into the heart chamber. This condition most often is treated surgically, and the valve is replaced with a human donor valve, a porcine valve or a mechanical one. All heart valve replacements have a limited life span and must be replaced eventually, but for children, there are even greater complications:  the valves do not grow as children grow, which could mean as many as three or more open-heart surgeries during childhood and adolescence alone.

Open-heart surgery typically requires three to four days in intensive care, at least one or two weeks in the hospital and a lengthy recovery period at home. In contrast, patients who have valves replaced via catheter could go home as early as the following day, with little pain.

While catheter-based valve replacement procedures already are revolutionizing valve replacement for larger patients, smaller children have not yet benefited from this technology.  Although many companies are competing to develop the ideal transcatheter heart valve, most of these valves are bulky and can be used only in adults. Thin film nitinol could allow doctors at UCLA to make a transcatheter heart valve suitable for use even in small children.

"By collaborating with UCLA Engineering, we are creating a pediatric heart valve that has great strength and biocompatibility. It could mean a shortened procedure, a lower level of risk, and much less stress on the patient and their family. It also will mean a lower cost to the health care system," Levi said. "Our valve is presently being designed for replacement of the pulmonary valve, but eventually may also be able to be used for the aortic valve."

The UCLA team also has used thin film nitinol successfully in other biomedical applications such as stents — short narrow metal mesh tubes inserted into an artery or bile duct to keep blocked passageways open — as well as in other applications.

"Although the medical community has used bulk nitinol for the past decade in stents and other implantable biomedical devices, thin film nitinol has yet to be incorporated into a commercially available biomedical device," Carman said.

"Recent studies we've conducted have shown that thin film nitinol can be used to cover stents and to provide a barrier in preventing regrowth of tissue into stented arteries and veins.  Beyond its use in either percutaneously or surgically placed valves, I anticipate that thin film nitinol will have a wide variety of applications in the development of future implantable biomedical devices for both adults and children," Levi added.

In order to bring their new valves and stents for children to market, UCLA's Mattel Children's Hospital and researchers at UCLA Engineering are seeking to collaborate with industry, but both Levi and Carman say it will still be a number of years before the valves will be commercially available.

To date, the research done by Carman and Levi has been supported by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, part of the National Institutes of Health. Thin film nitinol originally was developed for defense applications with support from both the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Established in 1945, the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science offers 28 academic and professional degree programs, including an interdepartmental graduate degree program in biomedical engineering. Ranked among the top 10 engineering schools among public universities nationwide, the school is home to six multimillion-dollar interdisciplinary research centers in space exploration, wireless sensor systems, nanomanufacturing and defense technologies, funded by top national and professional agencies. For more information, visit http://www.engineer.ucla.edu/.

Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA is a 120-bed "hospital within a hospital" located at UCLA Medical Center in Westwood. The hospital offers a full spectrum of primary and specialized medical care for infants, children and adolescents. The mission of the hospital is to provide state-of-the-art treatment for children in a compassionate atmosphere, as well as to improve the understanding and treatment of pediatric diseases. For more information, visit http://www.mattel.ucla.edu/.

NCMI Meeting Successfully Held on Feb. 23

February 28, 2006

NCMI members and MAE Chair Hahn

    The MAE Dept. hosted the National Coalition for Manufacturing Innovation (NCMI) meeting, which was attended by representatives from a number of universities, industry and government. The meeting took place in the Rice Room on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2006, from 8am-5pm. Dean Dhir welcomed the attendees.

Visit NCMI online for more information.

AIAA Dinner Meeting, Sea Launch, Feb. 22nd

February 28 , 2006

Jim Maser

    The UCLA Student Branch of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) hosted a fundraiser dinner meeting on Wednesday, February 22 at 6:00 pm in the Tom Bradley International Hall. Jim Maser, the President and General Manager of Sea Launch, spoke about Sea Launch’s rise to become one of the premier heavy-launch services in the world. Sea Launch, an international partnership of five companies, launches commercial payloads into geosynchronous orbit from a floating launch platform near the Pacific equator.

For more information, please visit AIAA.

WINMEC RFID workshop Feb. 21st

February 28 , 2006

    UCLA's RFID Lab @ WINMEC presented a one day hands-on workshop on RFID application development on February 21, 2006. This hands-on workshop provided the attendees an opportunity to learn the basics and the potential of RFID in various application scenarios. Attendees got to experience a variety of RFID technologies and used the WinRFID middleware in conjunction with the existing RFID hardware in UCLA.

Please visit WINMEC online for more information.

IAB Meeting Successfully Held on Feb. 10

February 22, 2006

IAB members and MAE Chair Hahn

    MAE's Industrial Advisory Board met in the Rice Room on February 10, 2006, to discuss MAE's plans for the next five years. Attending from industry were John Armenian (TechFinity), Chris Cox (Raytheon Company), Gregory Davis (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory), Gary Ervin (Northrop Grumman), Jason Hatakeyama (The Boeing Company), Alvar Kabe (The Aerospace Corporation), Asad Madni (BEI Techonologies, Inc.), Webb Marner (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory), Roger Murry (Honeywell Engines, Systems & Services), James Paulsen (Pratt & Whitmey Rocketdyne, Inc.), Kevin Petersen (NASA Dryden Flight Research Center), Shawn Phillips (Air Force Research Laboratory/Propulsion Space Engine), Carl Rhodes (RAND Corporation), Sandeep Sane (Assembly Technology Development Intel), and Munir Sindir (Rocketdyne Propulsion & Power).

Dean Vijay K. Dhir elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering

February 13, 2006

Dean Vijay K. Dhir

    Dean, Vijay K. Dhir has been elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering (the highest honor an engineer can achieve!) "for his work on boiling heat transfer and nuclear reactor thermal-hydraulics and safety."  For more information, click here.

WINMEC Holds RFID-Focused Wireless CIO Forum

February 08, 2006

Prof. Rajit Gadh

    Advanced real-world applications for radio frequency identification technology were the focus of the CIO Impacts Forum at the University of California Los Angeles on February 7. The Wireless Internet for the Mobile Enterprise Consortium (WINMEC), directed by UCLA School of Engineering professor Rajit Gadh, hosted the event. For more information, click here.

UCLA Annual Research Colloquium Lecture Delivered by MAE ’s Chih-Ming Ho

February 08, 2006

Prof. Chih-Ming Ho

    Mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Chih-Ming Ho delivered the prestigious UCLA Science Faculty Annual Research Colloquium Series lecture on Thursday, Feb. 2, on the topic “Bio-nano World: In the Eye of an Engineer.”  Ho holds the Ben Rich-Lockheed Martin Chair and also is Director of the Institute for Cell Mimetic Space Exploration, or CMISE. Designed to promote interdisciplinary research and to be of interest to a general audience, the Colloquium series is open to the public.  For more information, click here.

SAMPE Awards $675 to MAE’s Solar-UAV Project

February 08 , 2006

    The Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering (SAMPE®), an international professional member society, awarded $675 to MAE’s Solar-UAV project.  These funds will be used to start the Solar-UAV project, and to show the progress made to attract more funding.

    The students involved in this project are the founders of UCLA's Solar UAV Club.  They are Halil Berberoglu, Zeljko Gigio Sakota (Composites), Richard Yau, O'Brian Ken Rossi (Aeroplane design and analysis), Nathan Kwok, Kamal Mohan (Skilled member Recruiting), Jon Sugar (Solar Cells, batteries and motor), Brian Shedd (Fund Raising and Outreach), Natasha Christine Barra (General SAMPE member recruiting), and Ronny Breslavsky.  Congratulations to all for their dedication and hard work.