Blog: Alyssa Quinney on her summer studentship experience

Alyssa Quinney, a UCL Medical Physics and Bioengineering undergraduate student, spent 8 weeks working at Moorfields Eye Hospital.

This summer, I was privileged to have the opportunity to undertake an IHE studentship at Moorfield’s Eye Hospital.

My project was titled ‘Design of a Biomedical Device to Enhance Safety and Efficacy of Ophthalmic Topical Medications’ and my supervisor was Professor Paul Foster. The project was to help patients suffering from glaucoma, a severe eye condition where the optic nerve is damaged, leading to loss of vision and eventually, blindness.

Eyedrops are the most preferred forms of treatment, however, some eyedrops (beta blockers and adrenergic agonists) can potentially cause respiratory and cardiovascular side effects such as shortness of breath and wheezing if they drain into the nose through the nasolacrimal duct and inhaled into the lungs. This would be particularly dangerous for elderly patients with asthma, chronic bronchitis or other pre-existing respiratory disorders. To prevent this from happening and to enhance the efficacy of the medication, the aim was to design a device to help patients apply pressure to the inner corners of the eyes and nose to block the drainage of the medication into the lacrimal sac when applying the eye drops. The picture below shows where my device targets.  

I spent 8 weeks observing glaucoma and adnexal clinics and surgery in theatres, meeting and gathering information from patients and clinicians/surgeons alike, to familiarise myself with the clinical background of this project and inspire initial design ideas. Simultaneously, I was designing my device using 3D CAD modelling, whilst considering the design criteria and challenges including gender and racial facial anatomical differences. I was fortunate to be granted access to 3D printers to manufacture and assembled my prototypes in both PLA and clear resin. The clinicians at Moorfield’s were more than generous in allowing me to test my prototypes on them along the way. At the conclusion of my project, after refining and testing many prototypes, I delivered a fully functional prototype to my supervisor. We decided that this current design could be further improved in specific design aspects as well as in conducting a material analysis. There is currently no such device on the market so further development of this would ultimately increase the efficacy of glaucoma eye drops to benefit patients. 

Vision impairment is one of the commonest disabilities in the UK and the world causing significant personal and economic impact. This project therefore appealed to me as ophthalmological applications of biomedical engineering in my course have not been explored in depth and I was very interested in the prospect of creating a device to assist visually impaired patients and gain more experience in my field. This also gave me the opportunity to apply skills I have learnt in my course to date in a real-world scenario. Moorfields Eye Hospital is at the forefront of ophthalmological care and research in the world so I was very excited to be able to meet and work alongside clinicians and researchers who are experts in their field.   

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