How Case Western Reserve’s Pedram Mohseni is advancing medical solutions through engineering
Goodrich Professor for Engineering Innovation and chair of the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering
Area of Focus: leveraging technological advances in microsensors and microelectronics to develop next-generation devices to improve patients' quality of life
Pedram Mohseni, PhD, has built his career at the intersection of electrical engineering and medicine. Specifically, he pursues a simple but ambitious goal: develop next-generation medical devices to improve quality of life for patients with disorders involving the blood and the brain.
"The ability to translate the technology out of the lab and put it on a path to ultimately help patients in a realistic timeframe [has been] a big motivation," said Mohseni, the Goodrich Professor for Engineering Innovation and inaugural chair of the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering (ECSE) at Case School of Engineering.
Mohseni was recently named an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) fellow in recognition of his contributions to biosensors and bioelectronics for mitigating debilitating blood- and brain-related disorders. And in April, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) inducted him into its College of Fellows, citing in a news release his "outstanding contributions to innovation and translation of biosensors and bioelectronics for point-of-care diagnostics and treatment management of hematologic disorders.”
One of Mohseni’s earlier career milestones came in 2013, when he co-led a team of researchers that discovered a new approach to brain stimulation.
The researchers demonstrated a new closed-loop neurostimulation approach for recovery after brain injuries in preclinical animal models. Using this method, they recorded neural activity in a spared motor-related region of the brain, while triggering stimulation in a different part of the brain.
By judiciously choosing which areas of the brain to stimulate and to record activity, the team "showed that it is possible to generate a rapid and significant level of motor function recovery in a rodent model of traumatic brain injury," said Mohseni, who co-authored the study, which was published in December 2013 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
In 2014, Mohseni pivoted to focus on blood-based monitoring.
Along with Michael Suster, an assistant professor at the engineering school, Mohseni invented ClotChip, a platform technology that can rapidly measure blood coagulability.
Patients with hemophilia—a genetic disorder causing insufficient blood clotting that can lead to excessive bleeding—typically need to go to a physician on a weekly or monthly basis to measure their blood's coagulability and receive treatment.
With ClotChip, the researchers aim to transform hemophilia care management, enabling patients to measure on demand the coagulability of their blood and know when they need to go in for another treatment.
“The platform technology is also equally applicable, for example, to patients who need to be on blood thinners," Mohseni said. "But right now, there is no technology that can be used on demand and outside of the confines of a central lab setting for these kinds of hemostatic measurements, especially involving a newer class of FDA-approved blood thinners."
XaTek Inc, the CWRU spinout company commercializing the point-of-care diagnostic tool, received "Breakthrough Devices Designation" for ClotChip in 2020. ClotChip is currently in clinical studies.
With funding from the Department of Defense and the Air Force Research Lab, Mohseni is working on the next generation of the ClotChip. The goal is to not only tell whether coagulopathy is present, but also determine the source from the data gathered.
"If we know what the source is, it can actually enable a more guided transfusion therapy…. instead of a one-size-fits-all therapy,” Mohseni said.
Mohseni encourages students and early‑career researchers to familiarize themselves with the translation and commercialization process, such as Case Western Reserve’s. Even if they don't ultimately pursue that path, being aware of related issues can affect how they go about the work.
Whatever type of work researchers may pursue, Mohseni suggests starting with an unmet need.
"Knowing essentially what the need is, and then coming up with smart, technological solutions to address that need has the most impact,” he said.
