Biomedical Engineering

Biomedical engineers design the medical technology to maintain and improve our quality of life. Our graduates work for pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, rehabilitation centers and biomedical research institutes.

Engineering Open House Home

2025 Projects

Aseta - The Self-Sanitizing Table

MEMBERS: Andrew Hart, Canon Smith, Kaleb Merrill

ADVISOR: Dr. Kim Cluff

We are addressing the dual challenges of patient wait times and exam room cleanliness, which often create bottlenecks in clinical workflows and consume valuable time and resources that could otherwise be dedicated to patient care.

Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) pose a critical challenge in clinical settings, leading to prolonged patient recovery times and increased healthcare costs. According to the CDC, approximately one in 31 hospital patients experiences at least one HAI on any given day.

In today’s fast-paced healthcare environment, there is a critical need for a device that reduces patient turnaround times while upholding the highest standards of exam room cleanliness and safety.

Our project aims to enhance the efficiency of cleaning exam room tables while maintaining or improving current sanitization levels. Additionally, our device will not only achieve this goal but also help reduce single-use waste in clinical settings.

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Break Away Buddy

MEMBERS: Taylor Cazabat; Madelyn Stilwell; Abby Neumeister

ADVISOR: Dr. Kim Cluff

With innovative medical solutions, team ATM is dedicated to enhancing patient safety and provider efficiency. Our flagship product, the Break Away Buddy, is designed to securely hold nasogastric (NG) tubes, preventing accidental or intentional removal by patients. By prioritizing safety, security, and provider time, our solution reduces complications, minimizes interruptions in care, and allows healthcare professionals to focus on what matters most—delivering exceptional patient outcomes.

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Project Apollo: Intelligent Diabetes Management for Kids and Families

MEMBERS: Ahmad Jesri, Bao Nguyen, Clay Shaw, Cameron Todd

ADVISOR: Dr. Kim Cluff

SPONSOR: Wichita Diabetes and Endocrinology 

Apollo is a compact, all-in-one wearable device created to make life easier for families managing Type 1 Diabetes. Designed with children in mind, Apollo combines two essential components—a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) and an automated insulin pump—into one streamlined, intelligent system. It monitors blood sugar levels in real time and delivers insulin automatically when needed, reducing the burden of constant monitoring and decision-making. At the heart of Apollo is a Raspberry Pi 4, which serves as the device’s central processor. It continuously reads glucose data and follows built-in safety protocols to determine when and how much insulin should be delivered. If a child’s blood sugar drops too low, the system pauses insulin delivery and notifies the user. A manual bolus button also lets users request an extra dose of insulin when it’s safe to do so. What sets Apollo apart is its needle-free insulin delivery system. Instead of relying on a traditional needle and plastic cannula, it uses high-pressure microjet technology to deliver insulin just beneath the skin—painlessly and without the fear many children associate with needles. A rotating injection site mechanism ensures insulin is distributed to different areas, promoting healthy absorption and reducing skin complications over time. Apollo’s data syncs to a mobile dashboard that allows parents and clinicians to track trends. With customizable outer shells—including Marvel and Star Wars themes—Apollo brings both function and comfort to diabetes care. At its core, Apollo is about empowering families—with safety, simplicity, and imagination.
 
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Single Use and Novel Lithotripsic Device to Reduce Procedural Time 

MEMBERS: Xavier Banuelos, Alejandro Gallo, Ackshana Miranda Joseph, Thu Nguyen, Hafsa Sadaf 

ADVISOR: Dr. Kim Cluff

SPONSOR: Wichita Diabetes and Endocrinology 

Kidney stone diseases affect 1 in every 500 individuals in the United States every year - side effects comprising of severe pain, burning sensation while urinating, nausea and fever. Kidney stones that are too large to pass on their own will need intensive and highly invasive treatments, including open surgery. Common procedures may include Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy (ESWL), Percutaneous Nephrolithotomy (PCNL) with Lithotripsy and Laser Lithotripsy. Laser Lithotripsy is preferred for treating small kidney stones as it is a minimally invasive procedure, highly effective and it works best for stones that are smaller than two centimeters. Laser Lithotripsy can be used for bigger stones - yet this would require a longer procedural time. To address this, we aim to design a single use and all-in-one ureteroscope that can reduce the surgical time of laser lithotripsy. Traditional methods require the fragmentation of kidney stones using a laser, which is accompanied by the capturing of each fragment using a basket. The procedural time can be greatly reduced if the fragments were caught effectively. Some possible methods involve catching the stone beforehand, followed by the breakdown of the kidney stone with a laser. The current basket is unable to open to catch a large kidney stone, but only able to catch fragments or small stones. With the innovation, our basket can open and close and includes a biocompatible wrap to prevent the escape of small fragments.
 
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Visionaries in Biomedical Engineering (VIBE) Cap - Preventing Heterotopic Ossification and Bone Spurs

MEMBERS: Madeline Boman, Adam Slagle, Isabel Peine, Lindsey Mendenhall, Aubrie Thomison

ADVISOR: Dr. Kim Cluff

Heterotopic Ossification (HO) is the random growth and calcification of bone in areas they don’t usually grow, such as soft tissues. After amputations, HO can form on the terminal end of the amputated bone and transform into a bone spur. A bone spur is a sharp boney point growing out of the bone due to friction, injury, or trauma. Bone spurs can be painful, and cause patients to get revision surgery or alterations done to their prosthetic sockets at the location of the bone spur.  Revision surgery is not always an option for patients because of surgical risk factors such as age, neuropathy, diabetes, or infection. There are no current preventative biomedical devices that are used to prevent the growth of bone spurs. Our company, Visionaries in Biomedical Engineering (VIBE), aims to reduce the number of bone spurs by producing a novel titanium cap, that eliminates the formation of a bone spur all together. The innovative titanium cap is attached to the terminal end of the bone with bone cement during amputation surgery, cutting the time and cost of frequent maintenance needed with a bone spur. VIBE is currently focusing on the application of the VIBE Cap in lower-limb amputees, which are 65% of the amputations done per year, with plans to expand to upper-limb amputees in the future.

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EPL: Eliminating Plagiocephaly

MEMBERS: Cameron Schwartz, Natalie Zahn, Ryotaro Ito

DEPARTMENTS: Biomedical, Entrepreneurship

ADVISOR: Dr. Kim Cluff

Plagiocephaly, specifically positional plagiocephaly, has increased since the “Back-to-Sleep” campaign of the 90s.  We are re-designing an infant mattress to prevent the development of positional plagiocephaly. The mattress will have removable foam blocks with divots of different sizes to allow the head to grow into a normal shape while being sleep safe.

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NoteBox: Medical Scribe for Code Scenarios

MEMBERS: Uriah Sanchez, Alana Cahill, Mana Balaji, NaMari Moss, Paul Kovacs

DEPARTMENTS: Biomedical, Business

ADVISOR: Dr. Kim Cluff

Emergency code scenarios are busy situations. In this high-stake and noisy environment, any number of things can be happening. For example, CPR is a commonly used technique that must be applied on the patient every second, generating a lot of motion and noise. Monitors can be blaring, and alerts can be contributing to the stressful scenario. Particularly, doctors and nurses can be trying to communicate with each other, but might not be able to catch everything the other is saying due to all the noise. Currently, a medical scribe is being used within these scenarios to note what is happening during a code response; however, the combination of all these factors makes it exceedingly difficult to accurately and reliably document everything that is going on and when they all take place. Our device, NoteBox, is designed to solve this issue. NoteBox can be placed anywhere on a code cart, a patient’s room, or the cab of an ambulance and is configured to take detailed, time-stamped notes on what was said during a medical emergency. NoteBox is capable of spotting high-risk instances of miscommunication by comparing what was said by one member of a team and noting substantial differences from what was said by another team member around that same time. Additionally, NoteBox allows one more medical professional to be available to respond quickly to the scenario, contributing their medical expertise towards the needs of the patient instead of focusing solely on generating a report.