This project is motivated by the need to substantially improve the quality and safety of our ability to administer cooling therapy, with the potential to save thousands of lives and eliminate thousands of device-induced injuries annually. The opportunity to conduct this research has been created by two major technical breakthroughs. On the one hand, the PI?s laboratory has discovered how to apply physiological principles to on demand create large heat flows between the body core and the skin surface for therapeutic purposes, and also how to break the chain of deep ischemia associated with tissue cooling therapy that can lead to ischemic-induced injury. On the other hand, there have recently been significant advances in developing new thermoelectric materials that enable devices to operate with much higher efficiencies than in the past. As a consequence, for the first time it is possible to apply thermoelectric modules directly to the surface of a treatment site, doing away with the traditional connections to an external refrigerator and circulating water lines to provide cooling therapy. At the temperatures requisite for medical cooling, thermoelectric materials can produce a figure of merit ZT of about 1.0 that is sufficient to generate adequate heat flow rates. Coverage of complex three-dimensional anatomic sites will be achieved with a matrix of small thermoelectric modules affixed to a flexible, thermally conductive substrate. Each module will have a thermal sensor to provide feedback signals that can be used to modulate the cooling effect in both time and space for specifically designed therapeutic protocols. An engineering challenge will be to provide the connectivity and control to operate all elements of the module matrix in concert. Subjects will be instrumented to monitor surface and core temperatures along with important physiological properties including skin blood flow at the heat transfer site. Performance of the thermoelectric device will be assessed in terms of compatibility with adaptation to medical applications and the ability to control physiological temperatures and blood flow.
This project will apply thermoelectric modules to fabricate and test refrigeration systems that can be used directly on an area of the body surface for therapeutic cooling. The capability can be used to treat medical conditions such as a stroke, heart attack, or concussion that can cause a life threatening lack of oxygen to the brain and to treat soft tissue injuries. This type of device will be safer and easier to use than any currently available alternatives, and it is designed for small size, light weight, and low power consumption to allow it to be used by first responders in ambulances so that treatments can be started early when time is of the essence. Successful completion of this project would enable more effective cooling therapies to be designed and executed than have ever before been possible and could save thousands of lives annually.
