ALEX LU
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Heart

Atrial fibrillation drug-delivery catheter

Context
UC San Diego B.S. Bioengineering senior design (Team 5), co-mentored by Cathiva
Dates
2023 – 2024
Role
Senior design engineer, 4-person team

Treating Atrial Fibrillation with Direct Drug Intervention: A Device Technology.

The device is a catheter with six flexible arms extending from its tip, inspired by cardiac mapping catheters. Each arm carries multiple needles hidden inside a retractable sheath, so gene therapeutics can be delivered directly into the atrial chamber.

Team 5: Sarah Chang, Alex Lu, Yassin Fagelnour and Angela Liu. Mentor: Dr. James Friend (UC San Diego MAE). Co-mentors: Cathiva. Collaborator: Dr. Neil Chi.

The team split the device into four sub-projects. These two were mine:

Deployable needles

  • Needle cutting, needle attachment and needle sheathing
  • 3 mm needles in a notched sheath; a pull-wire slides the sheath relative to the drug channel
  • Built a needle-cutting block and a 30° attachment mold so needles could be cut and positioned repeatably

Expandable whisk

  • Drug channel connectors and tube material selection
  • Arm-shaping mechanism using shape-memory nitinol
  • Worked through unwanted tube kinking during development