Congratulations to Adbo Elhosary for completing his MASc in Biomedical Engineering. Adbo’s research focussed on respiratory and cardiac monitoring systems. Learn more about his journey through his MASc.
Can you please share a couple highlights from your time in SBME? Notable achievements?
I’ve had so many notable moments during my time here but I have to say, getting to work with Dr. David Agulnik and Prof. Guy Dumont for the MITACs accelerate project to experience first hand how we develop new biomedical technologies to bring to a market/clinical setting goes on top of the list- it was a mix of going fast and slow because we didn’t want to break things. A big highlight that comes to mind was getting to work with Dr. Kendall Ho for an exploratory social media behavioural study during COVID-19. Another highlight that really comes to mind is getting to work on the how its med’s series of podcasts to interview change makers and leaders in the medtech space to bring to light their journeys, experiences and the spirit that they brought to the industry. I think that blend of experiences of actively doing the engineering work , actively participating in research and actively listening to the guests really gave me a unique perspective on the field at large
Can you please share a bit about what attracted you to do your MASC at SBME? Any highlights?
I was already part of a smaller cohort for the biomedical option in electrical engineering during my undergrad and I really enjoyed the way the professors melded the medical sciences with the engineering rigour, I didn’t always know where to start but I found that moving from the fundamental out usually grounded me in a framework that could scale out of the classroom, I remember how this came in handy during grad school where understanding the processes were a core aspect of navigating this thesis project. I had a few really that I took during undergrad and I was thrilled to have an opportunity to join the engineers in scrubs program. I also wasn’t sure if I wanted to do a PhD straight out of undergrad so I took this as an opportunity to explore academia from the engineering lens as a Master’s student.
Tell us a bit about your research?
I was focused on bringing a radar-based vitals (respiratory & cardiac) monitoring system to the ER at St. Paul’s. We had a few hurdles along the way that made us restart the development cycle from the ground up but we learnt something new every time we began a new cycle. When I began this research, the science was readily available in the literature so we had to develop our own methods and systems to put it all together, this approach eventually led us to land on a proprietary bench top system that we believe can scale up with time and continued development. Outside of the engineering, we got to conduct a small preliminary human trial on the system to validate that we can produce predictably accurate metrics (RR & HR) on a batch of early participants which yielded some promising results. Along the way, I was fascinated to notice a quirk in the experiments’ results whereby whenever a subject would elevate their respiratory rate, their heart rate would follow. I thought that I had found a new problem to debug but upon inspection, the professor confirmed that it was a phenomena that was already understood in the literature- respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). I discovered that the work of a scientist is never really finished and that we always rely on the time and energy of all those that came before us to continue building out the tree of knowledge for the next generation of scientists, engineers and researchers. That being said, maybe AI changes how we approach science all together but the scientific method should keep us all grounded in a shared verifiable truth.
What do you find so exciting about biomedical engineering?
The unknown unknowns of those fields are vast, unexplored and endless. From the perspective of a graduate student, a lot of my peers and friends at SBME focused on biological systems, immunology or genetics for their core engineering, while I was focused on digital health and electromagnetic systems which made me realize just how open ended the field really is. It took a bit of getting used to but I realized that it’s possible to cross-pollinate ideas and methods between the disciplines under the biomedical engineering umbrella, that the way a field changes with time has some aspect of plasticity to it and that real scientists, researchers and engineers are the ones driving that change. I also really like that the work done in biomedical engineering can directly translate to improved clinical care for patients at large and reading between the lines almost feels like a precursor to the future of medicine.
What are your plans for the future or next steps?
I have a few options to consider but one thing’s for sure, I’ll continue investing in my education as a lifetime learner. In the meantime, I’ll be happy to continue exploring my passions in entrepreneurship, art and medicine.