The professor and his students navigated the aisles of Axman Surplus, collecting bits of salvaged hardware, circuits, electrical components.
Something old to build something new.
Steven Saliterman, a professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Minnesota, and a small group of undergraduates were building a new medical device from scratch. He often worked with students on inventions and innovations, but this time they were answering a call for help.
Reynaud’s phenomenon is a frustrating and sometimes painful condition that causes blood vessels to contract, decreasing circulation to the extremities — particularly in cold weather. Bad news for sufferers in frigid Minnesota as their fingers, toes, ears or noses turn bone-white or blue.
One of Saliterman’s colleagues, a doctor, reached out. His wife, who has Reynaud’s, wondered if anyone at the U was working on a device, not a drug, that could treat or prevent the uncomfortable symptoms. There had been some promising studies into the possibility of light therapy, but no one had tried to develop a treatment for humans — yet.
Saliterman and his students took up the challenge. It was 2017.
Creating new medical technology when “there’s no formal funding and no formal lab to work in, because they’re undergraduate students, is a real challenge,” Saliterman said. “You have to say, ‘We’re going to make this work, we’re going to find what we need, we’re going to scrounge. Whatever it takes.’”
Brett Levac was a sophomore majoring in electrical engineering when he joined the project. He remembers riding the light rail to Axman, scrounging for technology to use.