“The genius of Athena isn’t simply in expanding get admission to; it’s in taking the affected person out of the health center,” mentioned probably the most award judges.
Contemporary College of Limerick graduate Olivia Humphreys has received the 2024 James Dyson Award for Eire for an cutting edge design to assist most cancers sufferers struggling hair loss.
The speculation for her invention, a cell scalp-cooling tool, got here as she witnessed her mom’s fight with the illness in 2019.
Many most cancers sufferers be afflicted by chemotherapy-induced hair loss. Whilst many most cancers medicine may cause hair thinning and partial hair loss, chemotherapy medicine are the possibly explanation why a most cancers affected person suffers from whole hair loss, or alopecia.
Humphrey’s tool, known as Athena, works by way of utilising cheap thermoelectric semiconductors known as peltiers that cool a tank of water, which is then circulated across the head within the headpiece. Cooling the blood vessels within the scalp can prohibit blood glide to the realm, decreasing the quantity of chemotherapy remedy that reaches the affected person’s head. This is helping give protection to the hair follicles from medicine.
The Athena tool could also be moveable and battery-operated, making it more cost effective and environment friendly than medical institution fashions.
Present medical institution merchandise require sufferers to reach half-hour early and keep for 90 mins after infusion for pre and submit scalp cooling. With Athena, sufferers can arrange this side of remedy from the relief of their very own properties.
The medical institution fashions additionally value round €40,000 and wish to be repeatedly plugged in. Against this, Athena prices round €1,000 and, at complete battery energy, can run for three.5 hours, permitting the affected person to travel to and from the medical institution whilst cooling and transfer round all over infusion.
“Hair is a deeply rooted image of our identification. Dropping it may be one of the crucial tricky unintended effects of chemotherapy,” mentioned James Gilchrist, lead design engineer at Dyson and member of the judging panel.
“Recently, handiest 8 of Eire’s 26 hospitals be offering scalp cooling as a remedy, partially because of the expense of the apparatus and the overtime required to ship the remedy.
“The genius of Athena isn’t simply in expanding get admission to; it’s in taking the affected person out of the health center … That’s no longer only a win for sufferers but in addition for clinics, enabling them to regard extra sufferers on a daily basis.”
Humphreys has been introduced an internship with Galway-based Luminate Scientific the place she’s going to paintings on researching and growing Athena additional.
Because the nationwide winner, she receives €5,800 and can cross directly to compete within the global festival in November with a prize of €35,000 on be offering.
Final yr, Piotr Tłuszcz received the global James Dyson Award for the most productive humanitarian access with the Lifestyles Chariot, a mild ambulance this is more secure for a casualty to shuttle in than the boot of a automotive, to assist scientific evacuation groups in difficult terrains.
Don’t fail to see the data you wish to have to prevail. Join the Day-to-day Transient, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech information.
