Engineering
April 8, 2019
With offices in more than 100 countries, BIOTRONIK is a global leader in developing innovative medical technologies to support cardiovascular and endovascular health. Fortunately, for University of Portland students, one office is located just outside the city of Portland and company engineers Eric Austin and Habib Homayoun ’79 BSEE, ’81 MSEE, agreed to sponsor capstone projects with the Shiley School of Engineering.
This partnership has led to biomedical engineering graduate students Lexi Hartman ’19, Evan Fontaine ’19, and Jacob Giusti ’19 developing an anatomical model of the right ventricle and atria of a human heart.
“Because BIOTRONIK develops pacemakers, an important component of the device is for researchers to be able to implant a pacemaker, gather information from it, and observe the way the device functions within the heart,” explained Hartman.
Fontaine added, “The model needs to replicate the flow rate, pressures, motion, shape, and beats per minute of an actual human heart. This is the first device of its kind. There are no public accounts of an anatomically accurate heart model that beats like a real heart ever being made before.”
The students also found they’ve been given the support they needed to be successful – both at BIOTRONIK and at UP. “Eric and Habib have been very helpful by telling us what they wanted but at the same time giving us the freedom to find our own path,” Fontaine said. And “Kathleen Bieryla (an assistant professor at UP) has helped us along the way with lots of check-ins and interesting lectures on biomedical engineering.”
Hartman agreed, “I’ve been challenged since I began the graduate program but have had continual support from all the advisors and professors.”
The benefits are clear to Homayoun, too. “The Shiley School team has done a fantastic job. Our company can see that UP engineering graduates gain more practical knowledge, not just theory. They are ready to work.”
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