The Power of Invention

[Music]

i found out that i have

als in august of 2015.

that was a life-changing moment

although i knew i had been sick

since 2013.

in may of 2014 i was hospitalized in the

icu for life-threatening breathing

problems

i was even um in the

uh i was in a coma for a while but they

still didn’t diagnose als

at that time

but it’s not unusual for people that get

als and have to wait years for a

diagnosis

there is no blood test for als

instead you find out for sure you have

it by

measuring changes in nerve conduction

properties

after my hospitalization which lasted 10

days

i pretty much put the prospect of als

out of my mind

nobody ever mentioned als but i knew i

might have als

in the movie the theory of

everything about stephen hawking

there’s a scene where he receives his

diagnosis that he has als

when reality fades his eyes go out of

focus

and he stops listening to the doctor

that is essentially what happened to me

the most famous american that ever had

als was lou gehrig

he was the captain of the new york

yankees when he was

when he got the disease

and he gave a famous speech at yankee

stadium

when he had to retire

after that als became known as lou

gehrig’s disease

in the u.s anyway

i prefer to think of it as stephen

hawking’s disease

and partially that’s because i have a

lot more in common with stephen hawking

but also because stephen hawking lived

55 years and lou gehrig died after two

years

i think the crucial difference between

awking and

lou gehrig is that stephen hawking

could still do theoretical physics after

he got the disease

whereas lou gehrig couldn’t do that

anymore

another thing is that lou gehrig didn’t

have very good options on the medical

equipment that was available at the time

he had to make a very stark choice

between being

imprisoned in

an iron lung

or suffocating if

lou gehrig was diagnosed today

he would have other choices ventilators

have solved that problem

i myself am on a ventilator 24 hours a

day

this device i’m breathing with now is

called the sip and puff

and i usually favor this when i’m

talking to people

the reason is that i get to choose when

i inhale

so my speaking is more natural

but there are two other devices i used

to breathe with during the day

and this short video will show you about

those other means

this is my nasal pillow

it is hooked up to a ventilator and it

allows me to speak pretty well

especially with the modifications i’ve

made to the breathing cycle

even so i have to stop

speaking whenever it’s time to inhale

this is the full face mask

and as you can hear i’m barely audible

all three of the methods i use to

breathe with

are called positive pressure ventilators

that means

that air is blowing into my lungs to

help me breathe

but that’s not the way we normally

breathe

in normal breath

your diaphragm muscle pulls your lungs

down

to cause an inhalation

in my case my diaphragm muscles

completely paralyzed

there are prior art

methods that are called negative

pressure ventilators that

suck the air into your lungs

this slide shows two of those prior art

methods

the iron lung and a cure ass ventilator

you can survive in an iron lung but you

don’t really have a life

the cure ass ventilator shown on the

right is an

improvement

a rigid shell surrounds the patient’s

chest

and the pressure is varied in that shell

similar to the way the pressure is

varied in an iron lung

except that it’s smaller and

it can at least be moved around easier

but it’s not really portable in my

invention the conformal vest ventilator

is fully portable

and will be the next stage in the

evolution of negative pressure

ventilation

after my als diagnosis it took me a

while to get back onto a

positive path

but i did manage to return to my roots

as an inventor

a scientist and an entrepreneur

starting in early 2019

i focused my inventive attention on

medical devices that could help me

because i live on 24 7 ventilation

i naturally invented two kinds of

ventilator

shown in the next slide

the left thing is a patent illustration

on the conformal vest ventilator

and that’s what i’ve spent most of my

time on

on the other panel is the shared

manifold ventilator

i invented the shared manifold

ventilator because of kovat 19.

in march it became obvious

that there were going to be a lot of

people die for lack of ventilators

so i developed

this shared manifold ventilator

it’s designed to ventilate an entire

hospital ward

at much lower cost per patient

than any other ventilator design

while at the same time allowing each

individual patient

to have their oxygen levels and their

breathing cycles

be independent which is

different than other shared manifold

ventilators you may have heard of

anyway i’ve turned that over now

to a design team at unc charlotte

and i’m focused on the conformal vest

ventilator

this animation shows how the vest

ventilator works

i invented the conformal vest ventilator

with my brother rob

who’s a retired er doctor

the vest ventilator worked by expanding

around your thoracic cavity and pulling

your chest out

in order for it to work it must maintain

contact between the vest

and your skin and that’s done with the

mild

vacuum

the mechanism for the vest is that there

are multiple

tubes embedded within the structure of

the vest

and these tubes are specially designed

so that they

lengthen whenever they’re inflated

the enabling technology is

um that the tubes are highly anisotropic

they have a much higher modulus in the

circumferential direction

compared to the axial direction

this is achieved by embedding oriented

fibers in the tube wall

this is very similar to the way a

pneumatic tire works and

my first job after college was as a tire

engineer

it’s as a result of that background that

i

could see the possibility of making the

conformal vest

ventilator work

the conformal vest ventilator will allow

me

to walk into a room without the first

thing you notice

being that i’m breathing with the help

of either

a tube like this one or the nasal pillow

it also has medical benefits because

tubes in your

mouth nose or trachea are sources of

infection that can kill you

the conformal vest ventilator is also

energy efficient which means it will be

completely portable

many people that get als have to have

tracheostomy

that’s a surgical procedure where

a tube is inserted into your trachea

after a tracheostomy you can’t talk

anymore

i’m very lucky among als patients

because i can still talk and eat

normally

i use my voice to create documents

including my patent applications and my

voice is critical to me

avoiding a tracheostomy was a major

motivator for me

to invent the conformal best ventilator

although i invented it for myself and

other people with neurological

conditions

it turns out that the conformal vest

ventilator is very applicable to other

medical problems

including spinal cord injuries copd

sleep apnea and asthma

the status of my project now is that i

have demonstrated the anisotropic tubes

which are the basis for the invention

i have filed an international patent

application

and i’ve done a preliminary submission

to fda

i expect to have

a bench-scale prototype done by

christmas

[Applause]

i am way more experienced as an inventor

than

as an entrepreneur but i am pursuing

this

idea as an entrepreneur

one of the best ways to change the world

is to build a successful company

just ask elon musk

my whole life i’ve been primarily

motivated by

inventing things to make the world a

better place

the conformal vest ventilator is just

the most recent

example

if you do feel there’s something you

want to do to improve the world

don’t let impediments and obstacles stop

you from trying

even if you fail

you will have tried and when it’s your

turn to die you won’t have regrets about

not having tried

bless you and thank you for listening

you