A team of students at Rice has won first place in this year’s Design by Biomedical Undergraduate Teams (DEBUT) Challenge, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the higher education non-profit VentureWell.
The team created UroFlo, an automated continuous bladder irrigation (CBI) system for improving the post-operative treatment of hematuria (blood in the urine) and urinary infection. They were awarded $20,000 for their winning device.
UroFlo includes a sensor to measure hematuria, adjusts the inflow rate automatically and quantifies the waste bag outflow rate. A web-based, remote user interface alerts clinical staff to problems such as abnormal flow rates, severe hematuria, and bag replacement.
Team members, all 2024 graduates in bioengineering, are Anushka Agrawal, Sahana Prasanna, Robert Heeter, Archit Chabbi, Kevin Li and Richard Chan. DEBUT received 85 entries from 48 universities in 24 states, representing 362 students. Prizes totaled $160,000.
The team will formally receive their DEBUT prize, administered by NIH's National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), during the annual Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) conference in Baltimore on Oct. 25.