Heartbeat HERoes, an all-woman team, won Rice University's 2024 Engineering Design Showcase.
The team won last month at Rice University's Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen's (OEDK) annual Huff OEDK Engineering Design Showcase.
They received the 2024 Woods-Leazar Innovation Award and a $5,000 cash prize for their medical engineering project.
The team consisted of Shannon McGill, Valentina "Vale" Ortega, Ananya Lingineni, Rachel Lee, Kate Mischlich, Jing Liu, and Veronica Aguilar, who are senior bioengineering and mechanical engineering majors.
Ortega emphasized the group's collaborative effort, "We listened to each other, took everybody's input, and worked as a team. Everyone was a puzzle piece, and we fit together well."
They built a catheter equipped with three stainless steel electrodes that can detect electrical signals from the heart's tissue.
The team's project is a prototype of a new catheter designed to treat premature ventricular contractions or irregular heartbeats that originate in the heart's ventricles. Frequent PVCs, if not treated, can lead to cardiomyopathy, which weakens the heart muscle.
The team recognized the limitations of traditional approaches and set out to develop a more efficient solution.
Their innovative design allows for precise targeting of abnormal heart tissue while minimizing procedural complexity and improving patient outcomes by protecting healthy cells.
The engineering design event, formerly known as the George R. Brown Engineering Design Showcase, is a long-standing tradition for Rice engineering students at OEDK, Rice's premier undergraduate engineering makerspace.
The team had several mentors from the Texas Heart Institute at Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center, including Mathews John, engineering program manager of electrophysiology clinical research and innovations, Allison Post, Dr. Michael Tan, and Dr. Mehdi Razavi.
This year's competition saw 68 teams compete at the Ion innovation hub in Houston's Midtown neighborhood, with industry and medical professionals, including Rice engineering alumni, serving as judges.
Winning teams took home a combined total of more than $19,000 in cash prizes. Director Maria Oden highlighted the significance of OEDK in nurturing innovation among students, supporting the work of over 900 students and at least 20 courses this academic year.
