CHORI: Designing Within Four Square Walls
In the dark setting of a children’s hospital, bright and innovative researchers work to improve the current standard of care for patients with thalassemia and sickle cell disease. The current method of treatment for patients with these blood-related disorders leaves them overloaded with iron in their liver and other organs, which puts them at risk of issues as dire as organ failure. Dr. Weyhmiller, who is passionate about the metal element iron, has been coordinating the SQUID-Ferritometer Program, which uses a device called the Superconducting QUantum Interference Device (SQUID) to measure liver iron concentration in order to help the thalassemia team manage the transfusion and chelation care for patients.
Walking into the room containing the SQUID, you would not notice the excruciating attention to detail that the researchers put into the design of the room. All signal processing devices are susceptible to noise, which produces errors and disturbances in useful information, and SQUID is no caveat to that. Because SQUID senses small concentrations in iron, any nearby movement or presence of iron can drastically change the resulting data from a scan, rendering it inaccurate and useless. Even cars that pass by on the nearby road can make a disturbance on the SQUID’s signal. Therefore, the building containing SQUID was meticulously designed with furniture that was not made of anything that could elicit any magnetic signals. Nails were made out of aluminum, flooring made from concrete, and all fixtures made with wood, plexiglass, or aluminum.
These impressive feats of design make possible a machine that is comparable or even beats the MRI at measuring iron concentrations in the liver and spleen. While there are still some improvements that must be made, such as switching the liquid coolant from helium to nitrogen and designing the device to be more compact, the SQUID has an impressive ability to improve the lives of patients through careful monitoring for spikes in iron concentrations, which could easily be fatal if not dealt with promptly.
The SQUID and, in fact, the entire building reminds us that design is more than just what the eyes can see. Although a room may look like just a room, there is more attention to detail than those four square walls may be telling you.
*Image from: http://thalassemia.com/treatment-squids-across-the-globe.aspx#gsc.tab=0
