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