A new lab space in Keene is offering local college students the chance to design medical equipment, which could help people in developing countries.
Lehnen Industrial Services, an engineering firm that designs and builds custom manufacturing machinery primarily for the life sciences, recently opened the space at 809 Court St., the former Summit athletic complex.
The new lab, which uses computer-aided design models to build machines and laboratory equipment, along with software development, was originally designed to help Lehnen’s customers. But the company invited Keene State College students to use the space for free.
“This gives not just our customers but students the opportunity to try out this cutting-edge technology without having to purchase it or pay someone to use it,” said Julie Runez, the company’s director of marketing, prior to the lab’s grand opening on Wednesday.
Among those at Wednesday’s reception were a group of Keene State students. The group is adapting an open-source medical syringe pump design from a project, known as Poseidon, that was developed by students at the California Institute of Technology for use in bioinstrumentation. The device, which includes a pump and a microscope, uses computer software to precisely dispense or move liquid for use in medical laboratories.
Elvin Colon, a sustainable product design and innovation major at Keene State, said the group saw an opportunity to use the open-source design to make a device that administers medication to patients. He, along with computer science majors Blessing Sithole and Austin Marquis, and fellow product design major James Fitzpatrick, want to create a device that caretakers in developing countries can use.
“Physicians in developing countries are often low in number but the need for care is pretty high,” Colon said. “So we want to change that hierarchy of care and make that necessary health care more accessible.”
At approximately $400, the device is cheaper than commercial options, according to Fitzpatrick. The group is looking to make the device even cheaper by removing the microscope from the final product. Fitzpatrick also said the group is working on software that requires patient and provider consent before giving the medication.
“They both have to hit a button that acknowledges the dosage of the medication, what type of medication they’re getting, stuff like that,” he said. “The patient has a say in it, too, and it won’t work until they both agree, essentially.”
Marquis and Sithole are working on software and sensor development under computer science professor Wei Lu, while Colon and Fitzpatrick are focusing on hardware under product design professors Lisa Hix, Curtis Mead and Warren Hurd.
“The most crucial piece of this entire project is the collaboration piece of it,” Fitzpatrick said. “We want to make sure this device is actually going to be useful, so we talked to the nursing department at the college and they gave us some syringes to use with our prototyping. The computer sciences, they’re identifying potential cyber risks and how to protect users from those.”
Lehnen Industrial Services has been based in Keene since 2001. The new space is a proof-of-concept lab. This means that people can further develop a prototype of a product with proof that it works before presenting it to potential funders. The lab space is for customers and educational partners of Lehnen Industrial Services, according to Runez.
“It can be pretty expensive to purchase a robot, even if you’re pretty sure your process requires a robot to automate it,” she said. Lehnen has partnered with several companies and manufacturers, which have made their components and equipment available at zero cost, according to Runez.
Lehnen engineers work with clients in the lab to experiment with equipment and software to make small-scale prototypes, exposing the clients to more of the company’s services.
Runez said the collaboration between Keene State and Lehnen gives students the chance to connect with industry professionals first-hand.
“The vendors and customers, they’re all very excited about these students coming in and using this space,” she said. “They often end up recruiting these students for post-graduate internships and positions at their companies. It’s an unexpected but added advantage, for sure.”
In addition to the educational collaborations, Lehnen Lab provides a demonstration center and will be offering in-person trainings with its partners.
“Our partners really recognize the opportunities with this space,” Runez said. “There’s just so much opportunity for mutual benefit all around.”