Spotlight on M.Eng. Project Team BrainLander

Working with Drs. Hartley and Ramakrishna at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, these M.Eng. students are working on a better way to get brain samples and time stamps for patients with glioblastoma tumors. Lee Puckett, Trang Dau, and Jason Miao discuss the design and function of a proof-of-principle prototype they designed to address this need and directions for future developments.

The BrainLander device is a minimally-invasive method capable of navigating to and sampling cancerous brain tissue growth following primary tumor resection. The sampling method used by this device mitigates the risk of blood vessel rupture through the use of proprietary vascular sensing. This device eliminates the need for additional invasive procedures, while also increasing the frequency of biopsy sampling and analysis. The overall goal of this device is to provide a low-risk method to perform frequent biopsies to help improve patient outcomes.